International Checkpoint Watch - Daily Observations

Date:  09 July 2001                                          Time: 18:40 – 19:45

Place Observed: Atara Checkpoint

Number of Soldiers Present: 5 soldiers

Events Witnessed:

Many cars are backed up heading out of Birzeit, but only a few are waiting to enter Birzeit. 

The soldiers were stopping every car to check its trunk and passengers’ IDs.  There was a long line when we arrived, and it appeared that people had been waiting for a while.  The soldiers were taking approximately 5 minutes to check each car leaving Birzeit, and made the each car entering Birzeit from Atara wait for about 15 minutes before letting them pass without being checked. 

One boy was being detained we arrived.  The soldiers would not let us speak to him, saying that he had ‘given them problems’ and that they have been holding him for 30 mins.  They said that he didn’t have an ID and that they want to speak with him, but are ‘too busy now.’  The soldiers also tell us not to use the camera we have or else they will call the police.

19:00 A man it taken from a taxi and detained. The soldiers make him to go sit over by the boy. 

We go to talk with people in some of the waiting cars, and they say that the soldiers are now starting to check cars more quickly, and they are certain this is due to our presence.

19:05 The boy who had been detained is released.

19:20 The man being detained tells the soldiers that he would rather stand than sit on the ground.  The soldiers tell him to remain seated.  He refuses, so they force him go sit on a pile of rubble near a cinder block shelter they have erected. 

19:22             Another man from the village of Abwan is detained because he doesn’t have his Palestinian ID with him, only his passport.  

There is a taxi stopped off to the side that has been there since we arrived, so we go to talk to its driver.  The driver tells us that he has been waiting for two and a half hours, but the soldiers won’t let him go. 

19:36 The Second man who was detained is let go with a warning that in the future he must remember his ID.

19:45 We leave, the soldiers have allowed the taxi that had been there for 2.5 hours leave (we approached the soldiers about the taxi and it was soon after that it was let go), but the first man detained is still waiting.