Beit Iba, Tue 9.9.08, Morning

Place:

Beit Iba

Tags:

Porters

Hitches at checkpoints

Observers:

Ruti Cohen and Shlomit Simon (reporting)

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Sep-9-2008

Morning

07:00-08:00 - Beit Iba Checkpoint
Very quiet, neither cars nor people. Only once in a while a woman crosses over, a man, a family. Long intervals when none wait to go in or out of Nablus.
The group of soldiers is also very quiet. Around the checkpoint everything is very clean, not just of passers-by but actually spick and span.
In the vehicle checkpoint two electric bars are blocking the passageway. One block is obviously insufficient. A fault in the electrical current from the soldier's post to the barrier causes further delay to passengers of a car who have already passed the soldiers' check.
Further down a sign says "Luggage Check" and our soldiers are rummaging through luggage in the wooden donkey drawn cart.
We might live to see a luggage conveyor belt installed.

Location Description

Beit Iba

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A perimeter checkpoint west of the city of Nablus. Operated from 2001 to 2009 as one of the four permanent checkpoints info-icon closing on Nablus: Beit Furik and Awarta to the east and Hawara to the south. A pedestrian-only checkpoint, where MachsomWatch volunteers were present daily for several hours in the morning and afternoon to document the thousands of Palestinians waiting for hours in long queues with no shelter in the heat or rain, to leave the district city for anywhere else in the West Bank.
From March 2009, as part of the easing of the Palestinian movement in the West Bank, it was abolished, without a trace, and without any adverse change in the security situation.