'Anabta, Beit Iba, Mon 25.2.08, Morning
07:30 Beit Iba. From far away we can already see a lot of young men with books and notebooks in their hands moving around in the area of the checkpoint. It turns out that there is still "separation" and residents of Tulkarm, and Jenin, of course, from the ages of 16-36 cannot enter Nablus. This means that for about 2 weeks the male students have not been able to study. They try again and again to pass and some of them try to go around the checkpoint to "drip through" in the language of the soldiers. This is a game of cat and mouse whose rules are known from the start to both sides, but the price is paid only by the Palestinians. We talked to a lot of them and one of the students agreed to give us his personal details in full so that we would pass them along to a petition filed by the Association for Civil Rights.
The taxi drivers told us that the checkpoint al-Bidan is open and there are no soldiers there; that is, anyone could enter from there with no problem!! The only problem for the students is the high price of the trip and the length of time it takes. But the security issue once again is shown to be nonsense. While we were at Beit Iba there was no one in the detainees
area, perhaps because the checkpoint commander, A., didn't hunt down trespassers but operated the checkpoint quietly. But he also is not willing to give in to anyone and the DCO officer, who also doesn't make any effort to help, claims that even doctors and teachers from Tulkarm are not permitted to pass through with no exceptions. Women and men over the age of 36 can enter Nablus. At the exit, in spite of the beeping of the magnometer, they give some of the people permission to enter without any basic inspection, but ask randomly for people to open their bags, especially the large ones.
At the vehicles checkpoint they inspect the movers, but quickly. We counted 8 cars entering Nablus. It took the 8th car half an hour to get through. At the exit for the vehicles there was no line.
09:00 We left for 'Anabta.