Beit Iba

BEIT IBA, Saturday 4 December 2004 PM Observers: Tami P., Einav K.(reporting) colour=red>Before we set out, we had received an urgent call from Esti Ts. who'd heard from cab drivers that they were being made to wait for their passengers some 2 kilometres away from the checkpoint. She had already called 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] and the local brigade headquarters and had been told that there had been a misunderstanding of procedures and that this would be put right. By the time we arrived in Beit Iba the cabs were back in their regular place.DetaineesThere were two detainees in the shed when we arrived at 13:30 . They had tried to evade the checkpoint , been caught, and were now doing their four hours in detention as a punishment. Before we left, we made sure that the new shift of soldiers knew how long they'd already been held. Passage through the checkpoint was quick and efficient. At times the place was empty – something I 'd never seen before . The soldiers were "fair", and quick. Everyone was let through, including young men [who generally experience almost insuperable difficulties in moving through checkpoints]. Two more people were sent to the detainees' shed but were released shortly. [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]. We left at 14:45