Number of Soldiers Present: 5-6 soldiers and one APC.
Soldiers Names, ID #’s, License Plate #’s, Etc:
Events Witnessed:
Traffic lines (1 lane) of cars and trucks in both directions, (10 to 15 vehicles on the Ramallah to Surda direction).
Soldiers randomly checked IDs of pedestrians, mostly young men, but also inspecting the bags or suitcases women are carrying.
Groups of 6 to 7 young Palestinians were regularly asked to wait behind the barbed wire. The IDs were checked within 15 minutes on average. One Birzeit University student forgot his ID. He had to wait for one of his friends to bring it to the checkpoint.
A little girl had to wait alone on the other side of the road until her brother could get his ID back. We asked one soldier to tell us how much time it would take so that we can inform the little girl. Her brother was quickly released.
A van with two workers was inspected for around 40 minutes (blocking the whole line of cars from Ramallah to Surda). The more the workers were showing their impatience the more the soldiers (3) were prolonging the inspection into checks. The workers had to remove all sort of tools out of their boxes, the soldiers checked everything inside the van and even started to check the motor.
The soldiers stated that is was absolutely forbidden to take pictures on the checkpoint.