Jalama, Tuesday, November 9, 2004, A.M.Observers: Yocheved G., Chasida S. (reporting)>Desolation and silence. A few Palestinian workers who passed the inspection inside the “sleeve” were now waiting for their Israeli employer to pick them up for work in the fields. Another small group was awaiting their employer, the contractor who is building the fence. As one of them put it: “We build our own prison, but what can we do? We need to make a living.” They had already finished the sleeve inspection and the pickup truck had just arrived to drive them away from the checkpoint.The employer, like us, came from Haifa. They got on the truck and we met them again at the soldier’s post where vehicles going into the territories were being inspected. The workers’ papers were again being checked. When all that was finished, they could all go to work. It was not clear whether there was a closure imposed on Jenin. What was obvious is that there was almost no traffic. The back-to-back site for transferring merchandise was still closed. The gate was locked and so was the police post. There were no vehicles awaiting opening of the gate. For as far as we were able to see, we didn’t see vehicles/buses on the other side, and we concluded that there was no prison visit today. Quite frustrating indeed — we drove all the way from Haifa to observe nothing and to do nothing.