Beit Iba, Mon 21.1.08, Morning

 07.45 Crossroads of Jit open in all directions.

07.55 At Beit Iba there is a line of cars in both directions. At the entrance to Nablus there are hardly any pedestrians but at the exit there are about 30 people crowded together and only one magnometer working. A few minutes after we arrive and without our saying anything a humanitarian line is opened and another line opposite the second magnometer. It took 12 minutes for a Palestinian to get through and it seemed both to him and to us too long a time. Today the porters are happy as they have had no problems.The magnometers squeak all the time and the soldiers do not tell the people to take off their belts and empty their pockets and so people sometimes go about three times and this makes them very angry. Some of them have nothing checked and this is a long and humiliating process. 

 At 09.00 there were many men and women going into Nablus and this we usually see in the morning: about 40 men in the narrow passage. The older men and women go through the humanitarian line and checking is random.

The universities are in session from Sunday to Thursday inclusive and so the pressure will be on those days. A driver tells us that bus drivers went on strike because they wanted to lower the prices and therefore the taxi drivers had more work. Since the checkpoint at Ein Bidan is open and people can pass freely there are less passengers going through Beit Iba as everyone who comes from Jenin and the surroundings  avoids going through Beit Iba.

While we were there there were no detainees and the soldiers left the taxi drivers alone. We left at 09.05 in the hope that the depressing situation would not become worse.