Beit Iba, Shave Shomron, Wed 11.2.09, Morning

Place:

Beit Iba

Shave Shomron

Observers:

Nora R., Chana P. (reporting),Translator: Charles K.

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Feb-11-2009

Morning

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Beit Iba, Shave Shomron Shave Shomron.09:00 A new checkpoint opens the road between Jenin and Nablus; there’s little traffic. The soldiers we met asked us to get out of the car to talk about the political situation. They thirsted for a discussion. Beit Iba.09:20 The commander immediately asked us to speak only to him, not to the soldiers. Afterwards he started talking politics with us. He’s from Nir Etzion, a cooperative moshav affiliated with Meimad, but voted “Jewish Home.” Light pedestrian traffic. Entry to Nablus is unrestricted; people leaving are inspected in two lanes, one of them the humanitarian lane.

Location Description

Shave Shomron

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The checkpoint is on Route 60 (the main road to the northern West Bank), opposite settlement. Has been blocked to Palestinians since disengagement from Gaza and northern Samaria.

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.