Beit Iba. Tuesday AM 1.8.2006Observers: Elinor. Amira (reporting)Natanya translatingAt the crossroads of Shomron , road 57/60: no checkpoint. Beit Iba 16-30 years of age not allowed to leave Nablus, including women. 7.30 Entrance to Nablus. 10s of people crowded into two lanes One lane for women and periodic shouts in Arabic…Women only. Also “Go back” and the commander does not allow us to speak to the soldiers. He says that we only create confusion, this to one of his soldiers. The soldiers are rude to the people who wish to pass to their work or studies. The claim is that the women themselves have demanded that the lane be kept only for them. Every few minutes the checking is halted and the crowd is ordered rudely to go back to the imaginary line “so as to protect the soldiers.” The arbitrariness is seen in this: each man and woman have their IDs checked, bags and parcels. The numbers are checked against an enormously long sheet which the finger follows. And then the next moment everyone passes without being checked, the line comes close to the checking post and has to move back and then once again the pedantic checking, the shouts and the harassment.Now and again older men enter the women’s lane, old or sick, and then they are shouted at rudely to go back to the men’s lane. At the exit from Nablus is only a slight movement. 16-30 years old of both sexes cannot pass. Evidently this so that the residents are not allowed to carry on with their lives. The representative of the District Commissioner’s Office arrive for 10 minutes and disappears with a captain who was waiting for him in a jeep next to the view point. He did not contribute much. A member of the council from Deir-A-Sharif comes to us and complains that the previous day a truck with rubbish was not allowed into Nablus. We gave him the number of the DCO to whom he has already turned and hopes that there will be no more problems today. When families with babies or sick members arrive the men are sent to the men’s line and the women wait. Three doctors arrive with a woman on their way to work (is she also a doctor?) and try to pass through the women’s line. They show their IDs that they are doctors but are sent back to the mens’ lane. They are insulted and leave in protest. They try to get into an ambulance which is passing to save themselves the humiliation once more. The lane of those entering (men) take about 15 minutes. The lane of cars from Nablus takes about 3 hours to get through and to those going in an hour. Taxis are not allowed to enter. We meet an acquaintance from Bartaa who has come to have his car fixed “only in Nablus they know how” but is not allowed in and we cannot help.