Beit Iba, Wed 2.4.08, Afternoon

  Natanya translating. 

The traffic is normal for a Wednesday  becaue the universities have changed the hour on which the students leave for the weekends to  Thursday. With the help of Nadim we got to the checkpoint at 14.45. There is little traffic both at the entrance and the exit and also that of pedestrians who come through two turnstiles for young men and a humanitarian though the age at which men can go through changes each morning and if also of course for those who have preferential occupations.  There are two detainees one of whom is a young boy.

15.00 A soldier brings a lad who has been bodily checked from the hill to where we cannot see him. When we ask Ashem from the DCO what is happening he says he will be freed in 5 minutes. When we speak to the commander it seems that this is the day of the secret service and while we are there young men are brought to the shed from where they are led by the soldier to their "meeting." I must state that this was done efficiently but was still hard for us to see and the young men came out defeated which is all part of the occupation.  Most people had a wait of 15 minutes which included the usual stripping and emptying of pockets,  which is all part of the occupation. When we said that it was not decent to chase the young men outside where they would have to dress in public we were told that this was to keep the passage sterile …everything is so sterile there. At 16.00 some more cars arrives.  We once again saw that with the reserve soldiers there is much less pressure but they do not exactly enjoy their work.