Beit Iba

BEIT IBA, Monday 13 December 2004 PM Observers: Ruth K., Sarah K., Anat D. (reporting) colour=red>SummaryThere was regular pedestrian traffic. At the beginning of the shift (13:30), there were many people leaving Nablus, that lessened by 15:30, but started up again around 16:00. Movement of vehicles leaving Nablus was slow (about half an hour waiting time from car to car). Most of the detainees were released after about two hours from the time of their detention. A young man of 18 who was told to go to the detention area and then, according to the soldiers, made trouble, was put in a cell (not handcuffed) and released after an hour and a half. The checkpoint commander, A., was pleasant and polite; the representative of 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] was not especially helpful or effective. The soldiers obviously lacked knowledge of the orders about g who was or was not allowed to pass – many people were delayed or inspected needlessly. 14:30 Beit IbaAs we approached the checkpoint , we saw the face of a young man behind the door of a cell: he was being wrestled by two soldiers. Sarah immediately ran to the cell, while Ruth took out her camera – the soldiers were threatening to handcuff the youth (he turned out to be an 18-year-old). The checkpoint commander, A., came over to calm down both the soldiers and the youth . The youth was left standing inside the cell, without handcuffs; the soldiers returned to their posts and we tried to ascertain what had been going on. The soldiers' version was that he had resisted being detained at the checkpoint. He'd said he wanted to leave Nablus, but, when he was detained, asked to be allowed to return there . When this request was refused, the soldiers said, he threw a bag at one of the soldiers and, after he was put in the cell, tried to open the door by reaching out through the window. The youth seemed to be in high spirits in spite of everything. He told us, in good Hebrew, that his father was in hospital in Tulkarm, and he had wanted to visit him there. Now, after the detention, he only wanted to go home. At that point, we tried to get the commander to let the youth go, while calling the army's "humanitarian" hotline about the case., A crowd of people was waiting behind the turnstiles to leave Nablus.. The soldiers were working quietly and efficiently. In the detention area , some 20 men stood in the cold, waiting for replies from the General Security Services, which were taking a long time. [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]. Among the detainees was a youth who was returning from the hospital and had medical permits — we called Dalia Bassa [the official in charge of coordinating medical services in the Occupied Territories] about him . There were also five students. All of them were released within two hours. It became obvious to us that there was very little coordination between the checkpoint commander and his soldiers, and that the soldiers did not know the orders governing who was or was not to be detained . For example, one of the soldiers detained students, although there was an order not to detain them. By the end of the shift, the company commander arrived and was surprised that people entering Nablus were being inspected. It turned out that all of those who were returning to Nablus had waited on line, been checked and perhaps detained — all for nothing. In addition, the soldiers who could have been handling the crowd of people leaving the town had instead wasted their time in needless checks of those going in.15:30 — It was now relatively calm, there was only a thin trickle of people going through the checkpoint, with two young men in the detention shed.16:00 — Pressure had mounted from both directions. The company commander arrived , shouted a few instructions and got out of his car to "make some order around here!" 16:30 — On our way back, we were caught in an unannounced roadblock at Deir Sharaf where about 25 cars were waiting on line. All the passengers were told to get out of the cars and had their ID cards inspected by a soldier and an officer. It was not enough that they had already waited in line at Beit Iba, now they were being inspected again, and this check would most probably take even longer. Meanwhile, the sun had set and it was extremely cold. ( The shift lasted from 13:30 to 16:30, starting at Irtah -- see separate report under Tulkarm area).