Beit Iba, Jit, Mon 7.1.08, Morning

Beit Iba
 
7.50 The crossroads of Jit. A Hummer, soldiers and spiked barriers on the road 60 from Nablus. The soldiers stop all the taxi and check IDs but the passage is swift. 7-8 cars.

8.25 Beit Iba.  We observe the checkpoint from the turning to Qusin. 6 cars with a swift check but every now and again the soldiers take a rest and this causes the line to lengthen.  The soldiers make a lot of trouble for the porters who take parcels from one end of the checkpoint to another. The checkpoint holds them up and they have to open the parcels even though there also dogs are used to check. One of the porters said that in the morning he had not been allowed to pass at all. Many taxi drivers say they have no passengers as people have no money. Only two cars at the entrance to Nablus.

We pass to the pedestrian passage.

The passage is slow and very messy. The entire time there are 15 men on the other side of the turnstile. As has been noted before the men have to take their belts off and everything out of their pockets so as not to activate the magnometer. Some of the parcels are checked not only in the magnometer but also by hand.

Elderly people and women are passed through by the commander with IDS but parcels are not checked by the magnometer. We did not see any representative of the DCO while we were there.

In the meantime a long line of cars piled up at the entrance to Nablus because the soldiers were chatting and not checking. We tried to call the attention of the commander to this but not only did he not react he also turned his back on me. But after a few minutes the checking was resumed.

We could not see if there were detainees nor did we see anyone being detained.

Entrance to Nablus with hardly any checking.

We returned to Jit and at 9.45 the rolling checkpoint was still working and there were 15 cars which had already been checked at Beit Iba. The drivers were angry and while we watched the line lengthened to 20 cars. At 9.55 we left.