Anabta, Beit Iba

ANABTA, BEIT IBA , Wednesday, 8 December 2004 PMObservers: Raya, Sarah F., Ella A., Hadass T. (reporting) Guest: journalist Yosef Algazi colour=red> 14:15 — AnabtaThere were a great many drivers, on both sides of the fixed metal arm that is all that constitutes this unmanned checkpoint . Two of them showed us that the windscreens of their cars were cracked; according to them, by the rifles of the soldiers [who sometimes appear] at the barrier. Some of them complained that the soldiers had taken their documents and had beaten them up. Because of the beatings, and the fact that they now had no documents, they could not work and make a living.14:45 — Beit Iba The same scene is repeated every Wednesday. That is when many students [from the an-Najah University in Nablus ] pass through the checkpoint [on their way home to nearby villages for the weekend break], thus making the pressure here heavier than on other days. Yet the number of soldiers is no greater. The bad weather did not help matters , and the checkpoint commander (we have his name) had just begun his shift, was very stressed, and lost control. As we have noticed before, when the checkpoint commander fails to exercise his judgment and becomes violent, then most of the soldiers act similarly.Several mothers with babies in their arms, and couples each of whom held a child, asked permission to go through on the side rather than being crowded together in the line and through the turnstiles [these are not simple turnstiles such as one finds in a subway station, but high , revolving gates made of steel bars: each segment is barely large enough to admit one average-sized person; there is virtually no room to spare for anything that person may be carrying , whether a child or a parcel; passage for pregnant women or for the elderly is extremely difficult and frightening]. But the checkpoint commander insisted they get back into the line, all the while pushing and shouting at the Palestinians, his soldiers, and us. After an altercation, and perhaps because there were two cameras in use here, he agreed to let the babies through without the usual crush. But when sick people over 40 years old asked to go through without passing through the turnstiles, they, too, were met with the same refusal. And we were all treated again to the same display of force, offensiveness and an outbreak of violence: and again , when a camera was produced, there was a corresponding change of attitude. While we were standing there, I met an old acquaintance, a lecturer at an- Najah University who lives in Anabta. He asked us to use our influence to increase the number of soldiers on the days when so many students use the checkpoint. (On Thursday evening, I spoke to his daughter, who told me that on her way from Ramallah to Anabta she had passed through seven checkpoints, the worst being Atara. This whole procedure wastes three or four hours for her every time she makes this journey, not to mention the other things that happen at checkpoints).When we arrived there were about 20 men in the detainees' shed.[Detainees are, typically, men aged from 16 to 30 or 35 who have no passage permits; recently, young women, too, have been detained. The detainees' 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]. Because of the delay in the release of the detainees and because of the intolerable behavior of one of the soldiers, we asked for the assistance of R., [who heads the local 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] and of the Brigade commander. To our astonishment, we saw dozens of ID cards scattered in various places in the checkpoint , some of them on the ground. It isn't surprising that documents get lost.At 16:00 the company commander arrived, and the people who were waiting miraculously began to pass through quickly and in an orderly fashion. This officer reprimanded soldiers who shouted at the people passing through, and agreed to talk to us after he had got things in order. Unfortunately, we did not manage to talk to him, since at 16:20 an emergency halt was called. The checkpoint was closed, and all the people waiting were sent back beyond the turnstile; there was a very high alert on [warning of a terrorist attack]. We left 10 minutes later, and were stopped twice on our way home at unannounced roadblocks, in Deir Sharaf and at the Immatin crossroads. I don't know how the army appoints soldiers as checkpoint commanders, but I have no doubt that a great many of those who do this job are quite unfit for it, and we should protest against that.