Beit Iba, Wed 20.2.08, Afternoon
Trans. Judith Green
16:10 Beit Iba
We approached the checkpoint and the checkpoint commander, a Lieutenant in rank, greeted us with "Stand over there. Don't bother us." That was all we heard from him today. We stood where we wanted in order to be able to see what was happening and report on it.
Three detainees sitting in the cell. According to the DCO they were being punished because they had tried to pass through avoiding the checkpoint. He promised that they would be released soon.
The soldiers are all at the vehicles checkpoint, busily eating oranges.
A taxi arrived from the direction of Nablus, full of young passengers; is requested by the female soldier at the checkpoint to give her the IDs of all the passengers and to cross over to the other side of the road in order to go through a thorough inspection with the assistance of a dog. All the passengers are made to move over to the other side of the junction, the side of the road leading to Kfar Kusin. The inspection takes 5 minutes. The passengers and the driver return, the taxi backs up to the junction, turns around and goes on its way.
16:20
The detainees are released.
Women, children and elderly man go through from the side. The inspection is quick and no lines are formed. The young man are pushed behind two locked turnstiles which open when the soldier presses on a button. The passage is very slow. Every time that the turnstile opens, 2 youths manage to go through; they remove their belts and empty their pockets, in the hope of passing through the monitoring device without causing it to go off. But the monitor always buzzes, never stops and the young men have to go back and look for some other metallic object to get rid of.
The engineers corps, with civilian assistants, operate the electronic vehicles checkpoint – another obstacle on the way out of Nablus.