Anabta, Shavei Shomron, Beit Iba

ANABTA, SHAVEI SHOMRON, BEIT IBA, Monday 11 October 2004 PM Observers: Riva B., Yael L., Maya K. (reporting) colour=red>Summary: An ordinary and frustrating day. Two taxis detained at Shavei Shomron for more than six hours (one of them with five passengers).13:05 — Anabta There was a mass of yellow taxis (25) on the southern side of the checkpoint, the metal arm [as usual] blocked the road, a bus and private cars also stood there; people complained about the difficulties of making a living. 13:30 — Shavei Shomron Two taxis had been detained in the parking lot: one, with its driver and five passengers, had been waiting since about 10:30, when the taxi was "caught" at Jit junction , travelling from Funduk to Beit Iba. The driver didn't have a permit. The second driver had just been stopped, minutes ago, on his way from his own village (Ramin) to Beit Lid . He too had no permit.We called the army's " humanitarian" hotline, where Sh. asked for and was given all the information about the first driver , V., and his taxi, and promised to deal with the problem. The soldiers at the checkpoint told us that their CO would arrive soon and he would release the drivers.We took the drivers' phone numbers and continued to Beit Iba. We kept calling V. and he called us (angry – why don't you do something while I am stuck here?). We called Sh. a few times (he was dealing with it, there were delays, etc. etc.), and also R., a senior officer at the District Coordinating Office (DCO) [the army section that handles civilian matters; it generally has representatives at the checkpoints ostensibly to alleviate the lot of the Palestinians], who only answered the phone once to talk to us; afterwards he didn't reply , neither at his office number, nor on his cell phone .At 17:00, when we were already back in Kfar Saba, there was a call from I. at the DCO. He asked if we knew anything about V.; I. said he himself had been at the checkpoint for 20 minutes, hadn't found any ID cards there, and the soldiers hadn't known what he was talking about. "Didn't you look for people in the parking lot?" we asked. "No, but when we arrive in the white car, they immediately come to us"! "But we asked for help about the people, not the IDs!"I called V., who said that he'd been released 10 minutes ago, but the second driver was still stuck at the checkpoint. At 19:00, even as I was writing this report, a call came from Sh. at the "humanitarian" hotline to say that at 18:30 the driver and the five passengers had been released. "But weren't they released before?" I asked. He didn't know. Maybe he meant the other driver. As of that moment , there'd been no answer from the second driver. One way or another, the drivers had been forced to waste the whole day there. Sh. also told me: "Recently there's been an increase in the number of drivers on the "sterile" roads " [i.e. on the roads built for and exclusively used by Israel settlers]. I asked why this was forbidden, there's no sign or any other indication to that effect. 13:55 — Beit IbaSome 60-70 people stood behind the revolving door (in the westward direction out of Nablus)There were only two soldiers checking and, although the speed of passage was reasonable, the number standing in line stayed the same until 15:00 when the line thinned out considerably,because at 14:40 the team checking was increased to five soldiers, including the woman soldier, Sh. and N. from the DCO .There were seven detainees [detainees are, typically, men aged from 16 to 30 or 35 who have no passage permits; their ID details are phoned through to the General Security Services (GSS, also known as the Shabak or the Shin Bet, the Hebrew acronym for the GSS) for checking against a central list of security suspects and the answers are then relayed back to the checkpoints. This cumbersome process can take considerable time, and that can be prolonged even more if the soldiers wait to accumulate a batch of ID cards before passing them on to the GSS , or if they behave in a similarly tardy manner at the end of the process, waiting until they have a batch of GSS clearances before they release individual detainees. Meanwhile, the detainees are virtually prisoners at the checkpoint where the soldiers retain the ID cards until the entire process is completed]. Shortly after we arrived, four were released, some of them sent back where they came from. A man accompanying his blind father to Nablus was not allowed to pass. The father went through with a different escort. The man insisted, and was denied passage time and again. He had a magnetic card [ this is given by the DCO and its possession is the first stage in the granting of any other permit; it shows some minimal degree of security clearance], but that didn't help. Phone calls to the DCO were also in vain; but, after some 45 minutes, he was allowed through. Before we'd left the checkpoint, the blind man and his son had both returned home.At 14:10, a young woman from Taibeh arrived, married to a resident of Nablus — where she lived — but keeping her Israeli ID. She was detained on leaving Nablus today (as an Israeli citizen entering Area A of the Palestinian Authority) and the police were called [it is the police who deal with Israeli citizens in trouble in the Occupied Territories]. On the Israeli side, A friend was waiting on the Israeli side to escort her back to Taibeh, and he urged us to help. Meanwhile, at 15:00, a man from Maalot-Tarshihah [in Israel's Galilee region] had arrived, an Israeli Arab, with his wife (who was from Nablus), his sister and four small children. The checkpoint soldiers allowed the women and children through, but not the man. His family decided to wait for him. The man told us that his wife has not seen her father, who lived in Nablus, for a number a years; now that he'd had a fall, they had decided to visit him. He himself had gone into Nablus a few days ago crossing through the Huwwara checkpoint "without much trouble"; he said he had not realized that he had to make special arrangements to go in and out of Nablus. Everyone was waiting for the police, but the police were nowhere to be seen.About two hours after the Taibeh woman had been detained, and nothing had moved, we called the police in Kedumim, but no one answered. We called directly to Rafi Cohen, commander of the police station, who said that he knew nothing about the case, and no one had notified the police. He also added that it was probably better not to involve the police, since they would have to arrest Israeli citizens who'd entered Area A. In the end, at 16:20 then Taibeh woman and the man from Maalot-Tarshihah were all released by the soldiers, without any sign of the police (we got a telephone report).Among the detainees there was also a student from an-Najah University in Nablus and a driver of a medical vehicle. When we asked why they were detained, we got the usual answer: they had fallen into a random sampling. At 15:00 there were 11 detainees, five of whom were released at that point. A very elderly woman, leaning on a cane (and on her grandson), arrived at the checkpoint at 15:30, together with the grandson's wife. The old woman had just come from having medical tests and had documentation to that effect, but only in Arabic. The soldiers refused the grandson passage through the checkpoint and told the old lady to go through with the grandson's wife , whicxh she refused to do. The checkpoint commander, A., yelled at the grandson: " If you don't get into the detention area right now – you'll stay here until tomorrow morning!" The young man was anxious, caught between A. and his shouting and a stubborn grandmother. He begged to be allowed just to bring her to a taxi. After long negotiations, they let him. He escorted her and returned, and was detained for half-an-hour.16:10 — There were now 12 detainees in the hut ( and , in addition, the Israeli man, his wife, sister and their children, released later). Fourteen vehicles – mostly trucks – were waiting to enter Nablus when we left .