Beit Iba

Beit Iba, Wednesday, 6.12.06 AMObservers: Nettie A, Rina Z (reporting) Summary: no restrictions on entry or exit from Nablus. The checkpoint is running efficiently and in a good mood.Jit Junction: 07:00 no soldiers, but by the petrol station in Kedumim Industrial Area there is a rolling checkpoint, and seven vehicles are already in line from the north. Beit Iba07:10 – six vehicles wait to enter Nablus. At the pedestrian checkpoint there are more than 20 people waiting, and no one checking them. According to one of the soldiers “there is no one to do it.”After ten minutes the checkpoint commander arrives with another soldier, and the inspection runs quickly, efficiently and in a good mood. The entrants to Nablus are inspected at random, the people coming out are also checked quickly so that most of the time there is no line. There is also almost no line for vehicle inspection. The commander, Staff Sergeant A., runs everything in a good atmosphere, and even manages to neutralise the military policewoman who is shouting all the time. A taxi driver, who apparently crossed the imaginary line, is brought to him and, instead of punishing him as is (illegally) the case at the checkpoint, with a few hours in the pen, he gives him an “educational lecture” and returns his ID.08:40 – we leave. On the way we meet Sarit, Hagar and Edna with foreign journalists, being interviewed by a Japanese.