Beit Iba, יום ג' 13.5.08, אחה"צ

Beit Iba
14:45
A few cars waiting at the entrance to the checkpoint, as well as at the exit.
There are two regular lanes and one humanitarian lane, not crowded, volunteers from abroad told us that one of the lanes was closed for about an hour; it turned out that it was out of order. The soldiers behave politely to us and don’t chase us away.

At the checkpoint exit we met a 12-year old girl waiting with her younger brother for their 16-year old brother who went through the regular lane; after waiting about an hour we suddenly saw that he was returned to the line.  In response to their question the commander said that he was being punished for being fresh to the female soldier.  Our response, that it isn’t their job to educate them and our request that they take the sister and her little brother into consideration didn’t help.  Luckily for them the line was short and he came through after a short time.  Beyond the checkpoint we met a man who reported that he’s a merchant who does a lot of business but they don’t allow him to bring his vehicle into Nablus and he doesn’t understand why.  He said his brother will bring in the vehicle instead of him.