Beit Iba, Sarra

Beit Iba, SarraWednesday 23/2/05 PM Ria Y.,Sarah P.,Yeudit P., Elat B., Deborah L.BEIT IBA We got to Beit Iba at 2 PM . We had to continute some work Michalina D. had started in the morning in trying to find a missing ID but it had already been taken care of. The officer on duty [A.] was very aggressive towards us and all the rest of the soldiers including the DCO representative [C.] chose to ignore us as much as possible. The atmosphere was not what we expected after hearing about the great reserve soldiers. We were there for about 40 minutes and during that time there was a steady flow of men (a lot of students) and some women. There was very little vehicle traffic. We saw 2 detainees that were waiting to be taken by the police. When the police came the men were taken aside to where they had left a white van which the police started to check thoroughly. Then with one police car in front of the van and one police car in back of the van all three vehicles drove off. We did not find out any other information as to why, where, how. At 2:15 PM a young student was detained. And at 2:20 PM another young man was detained who lives in Nablus and goes every day to Nafta to visit his mother who is sick at home (this is what his friends who were waiting for him claimed). The soldiers said he was active in Hamas and so they had to check him. We left our number with the friends and told them to call us if they were detained much longer. We didn't hear from them so we hope they were not detained too long.SARRA We expected just to take a quick look and remained there for over an hour. The big problem there is that there are a certain percent of workers who need their trucks or tractors or taxis in order to serve the surrounding areas. In order to leave Sarra they need to be on a list prepared by the army that must be at the Sarra checkpoint as well as the Beit Iba checkpoint. These lists must be constantly updated. The Head of the local municipality has to organize this list and give it to the DCO. The DCO must then make sure that both Sarra and Beit Iba have a copy of this list. The workers who stopped us at the checkpoint claimed that they were on the Beit Iba list but not on the Sarra list (which is a Catch 22). How can they get to Beit Iba if they don't first leave Sarra??? We called Amos, Aran, and Raad from the DCO. The officer on duty at the checkpoint was very sympathetic but his hands are tied if the people are not on the list . The local people claim that even if they get things finally straightened with the officer on duty, in a few days or even the next day there is some one new and the whole mix up starts again. We got the DCO to send a representative [Anwaar] who spoke to the men and took another list. When we got to Huwwara we spoke to the DCO representative, Major Nabuane, who says he is responsible for those lists and he renews them every few days. We feel there should be a MW check every day at this checkpoint to see if we can be of some influence in seeing that this matter of them leaving and returning to Sarra with their work vehicles is taken care of.