An evening at Beit Iba checkpoint

When we left our home to go to Beit Iba checkpoint (CP), we thought it would be an easy day with no queues of students because of the holidays, but when we arrived we found a situation different and more unpredictable from the one expected. Beit Iba CP is a familiar place, we are here twice a week to be the eyes and ears for the World Council of Churches and for our community at home through speaking and writing about our direct experiences in the field.

A CP is a place among many others, where Palestinian people have no rights and no protection under international law. Here they are asked to obey military orders which cannot be questioned and where non-compliance leads to punishment: such as for taxi drivers who noisily call for customers, or drivers who jump the queue, or students who ask how much longer they are to be kept waiting. We have observed punishments such as bags checked more thoroughly, people sent into a detention area where they may be allowed to keep their clothes on or asked to take some off or to stand with both arms extended upwards for half an hour or worse, to be taken into administrative detention without access to a lawyer.

On either side of the CP there are areas of small comforts such as a stand selling sweets prettily wrapped in cellophane paper, a small shop and several 'cafes' with dusty plastic tables and chairs but serving good authentic Arabic coffee, and there is a man with a donkey and cart who offers people to take their heavy bags from one end of the CP to the other. And having had to leave the minibus on the Tulkarm side, people know that there will be cars on the other side for onward travel in the direction of Nablus.

Among our different roles are those of accompaniment and protective presence; today both these roles were challenged. On arrival at the CP there were not the usual long queues of students and workers, but instead queues of cars in both directions. We counted 54 from Nablus and if multiplied by 3-5 minutes and sometimes more of checking time for IDs and for luggage, it makes for a long, tedious and exhausting waiting time. We noticed four men held in the detention box, one of whom was the driver of a minibus. We located the bus and its passengers, an elderly lady holding a walking stick and two young children and their mother who was upset and in tears. They had no way of knowing for how long they would be stranded and unable to continue their journey. The driver had been 'punished' and taken to the detention box because he had left the official queue and according to a soldier had been 'difficult'.

We now shuffled between the CP comforting the passengers and asking the soldiers questions to clarify the situation. 'No' the driver could not be released, nor could we find out how long he would be held, but 'yes' we could accompany the family on foot through the CP to the other side for a waiting taxi to Tulkarm. Back to the mother who was still in tears and distressed and told us that she was pregnant. She initially did not wish to leave the minibus preferring to wait for the driver, who was a family friend. We stayed with her and waited for her to be less overwhelmed by the situation. After a while she was happy to come out and walk with us through the CP area. The elderly lady told us that she could not walk the distance of approx. 100 meters, and we felt it was not right to leave her alone. So we found a car standing close to the minibus with a space for a passenger and asked the driver if he was willing to take the lady across to the other side. We helped her out of the bus into the waiting car whose driver now even offered to take the lady home. We breathed a short sigh of relief before we realised that the middle door of the bus where the family was sitting was locked. A shuffle back to the soldiers to ask if they could please help us unlock the door, they came and went unable to open it but after a while returned with the car key. The door was unlocked and we thanked them. The two soldiers had gone an extra mile to assist the stranded family who was now relieved to come out and be accompanied by us through the CP; the driver was also allowed to briefly speak with the mother, and she thanked us before taking a taxi home.

It felt like a small rescue mission, but four men were still held in the detention box and we were unable to get them released. And there was still a long queue of cars including a bus with women and young children. We waited and expected the bus to be allowed through with an ID check by the soldiers inside the bus. At the checking booth the soldiers asked all the women and children to leave the bus, it was by now dark and cold. The adults had to go one by one for ID checks through what the military call the 'Humanitarian lane', a word which in this context is part of the distorted extensive language of occupation.