Beit Iba, Shave Shomron, Thu 12.2.09, Afternoon

14:55 Beit IbaA long line of vehicles at the exit; we can't see the end of it. It is a half an hour's wait to go through.  2/3 of the covered pedestrian passage is full. 20 minutes to go through.  The humanitarian line is also full and moving slowly. The DCO rep arrives and speeds things up a bit in the humanitarian line - women go through without any inspection of documents.  They inspect only the documents of the men, so the line is emptied. 15:40The humanitarian line is full again, almost to the end of the shed, but it empties out quickly.  The regular pedestrian fills the shed halfway. 15:45An Israeli vehicle is at the exit.  They let it go out, but only after checking the documents.  The checkpoint commander tells us that, since Shabbat, Israeli Arabs were allowed to go in and out of Nablus, but it is forbidden now.  The pedestrian checkpoint is 1/3 full. Outside the checkpoint itself, a young man approached us with an adult man, in order to translate for him.  He says that he lives in Kuchin but they never let him go in and out of Nablus.  We try to clarify this with the checkpoint commander and he immediately knows about whom we are talking.  He tells us that the older man is the father of the youth and that the young man himself takes children back and forth from the school in Nablus.  The checkpoint commander says that the father spoke with him yesterday on this subject.  He says that there is no problem, that he can go in and they will allow him to go out.  He says that, if there is a problem at the exit, he should request to speak to him, the checkpoint commander.  We pass on this information to the young man. 15:50We leave. 16:00  Shave ShomronWe decided to visit and see what is happening at Shave Shomron, in spite of the fact that, as far as we know, the checkpoint is not operative.  But, in fact, it was operative.  Extremely operative. There is a long line of vehicles at the exit.  We couldn't see the end of it.  Almost every vehicle is inspected at the exit;  it is about a 5 minute wait.  Also at the entrance they check documents at high speed.  An officer approached us and asked what we were doing.  We explained.  He didn't seem satisfied.  Too bad. 16:15We left.