Ar-Ram, Qalandiya 12/5/2004 Watchers: Aya K., Ivonne M., guests: Hadil (student at the H.U.) and Carolina (photographer from London) Eran was the officer responsible for the Qalandiya checkpoint during our shift, and his quiet mood was projected to the rest of the soldiers. Sick and disabled were allowed to go through the side lane and were not forced to wait at the long line, as has usually been the case in the past weeks. Detained people were not forced to wait for hours on end but were released after about one hour.There is an orange box at the checkpoint where soldiers deposit all the documents that they confiscate. We saw dozens of documents, student cards, teacher cards, medical personnel cards, foreign organization cards and IDs. Where are the owners?We heard a shot near the newly built wall, and ran to see what happened. We were told that some children had thrown a stone over the wall and the soldiers had shot tear gas that hit the wall. When we arrived at the scene, the soldiers were pointing their guns at the people walking to and fro on the main street that goes from Jerusalem to Ramallah, and had already forced the taxis and services stationed at the northern part of the checkpoint to leave. The soldiers were not in any danger; in fact, they were looking for suspects with binoculars, because with the naked eye they could not identify any danger. Also, with the binoculars they could not see anyone threatening them but tried to guess. There were snipers with rifles with lenses pointing to the middle of the road. We decided to call the Army Spokesman vociferously (lately any call to the Army Hotline of the Civilian Administration turns out to be just a whitewash by them), and when the soldiers heard us talking to the Army Spokesperson, Shira in this case, they left their attack positions and returned to the checkpoint. A few minutes later another army spokesman, this time a young man called Liad, called us back and said that we had acted correctly by calling them, but that we were now endangering ourselves and the soldiers, and should go back to the checkpoint (he knew we were right but also had to show some authority). We assured him that we had gone back to the checkpoint as soon as the soldiers left also, and were now in no danger and that also the soldiers were in no danger.Hadil, a young student who came as a visitor, is thinking of joining us and this will be a very welcome event, as she is a fluent in Arabic and actually solved many problems.