Qalandiya - a woman with metal in her leg detained at the CP
The medical-patients’ transport vehicle to Gaza was at the checkpoint as early as 1 p.m., he was notified to get there early. I joined him at 3 p.m. Together we waited for the patients. When the driver got impatient he called, and heard there was a delay. We waited on.
First a woman came out (in the photo), extremely upset. She came from Ramallah, where she lives, and was on her way to East Jerusalem to visit her daughter.
When she went through the metal detector, it bleeped because of the metal pins that were inserted in her leg in surgery.
“I have metal in my leg” she told the soldiers. Either they didn’t understand, or didn’t believe her, or both, and forced her to repeat the whole process. Again and again it bleeped. “I burst out crying”, said the woman. “My tears were running and they were laughing in my face. I am 67 years old. What, don’t they have a mother, to be laughing at an old woman like that?”
After the laughs they made her go into a room where she was locked for about an hour, at the end of which she was released to get on her way.
“Take a picture and tell about this”, she said. I did and I do.
The driver and I continued waiting until the children, women and men who had been waiting there since morning without any food or water were allowed to get on their way home to Gaza.
On the other side of the checkpoint, the track that leads pedestrians to the refugee camp is flooded with the remains of the weekend rains mixed with rubbish, which made me think – perhaps – to suggest to Nir Hasson (Haaretz reporter) to reflect the condition of people’s travel conditions there: he had worked a long time on a story that dealt with the traffic jams around Qalandiya and spoke with me about this more than once.
On my way back from there, at the checkpoint, a suspicion arose that this young woman has a knife in her bag. A thorough and intrusive inspection showed that a hairbrush was the source of this suspicion, and there’s nothing because there was nothing (as Netanyahu is often saying…).
There was nothing, too, as I photographed the young woman and the security guard and the bag, and was held up at the police station for over an hour…
Qalandiya Checkpoint / Atarot Pass (Jerusalem)
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Click here to watch a video from Qalandiya checkpoint up to mid 2019 Three kilometers south of Ramallah, in the heart of Palestinian population. Integrates into "Jerusalem Envelope" as part of Wall that separates between northern suburbs that were annexed to Jerusalem in 1967: Kafr Aqab, Semiramis and Qalandiya, and the villages of Ar-Ram and Bir Nabala, also north of Jerusalem, and the city itself. Some residents of Kafr Aqab, Semiramis and Qalandiya have Jerusalem ID cards. A terminal operated by Israel Police has functioned since early 2006. As of August 2006, northbound pedestrians are not checked. Southbound Palestinians must carry Jerusalem IDs; holders of Palestinian Authority IDs cannot pass without special permits. Vehicular traffic from Ramallah to other West Bank areas runs to the north of Qalandiya. In February 2019, the new facility of the checkpoint was inaugurated aiming to make it like a "border crossing". The bars and barbed wire fences were replaced with walls of perforated metal panels. The check is now performed at multiple stations for face recognition and the transfer of an e-card. The rate of passage has improved and its density has generally decreased, but lack of manpower and malfunctions cause periods of stress. The development and paving of the roads has not yet been completed, the traffic of cars and pedestrians is dangerous, and t the entire vicinity of the checkpoint is filthy. In 2020 a huge pedestrian bridge was built over the vehicle crossing with severe mobility restrictions (steep stairs, long and winding route). The pedestrian access from public transport to the checkpoint from the north (Ramallah direction) is unclear, and there have been cases of people, especially people with disabilities, who accidentally reached the vehicle crossing and were shot by the soldiers at the checkpoint. In the summer of 2021, work began on a new, sunken entrance road from Qalandiya that will lead directly to Road 443 towards Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. At the same time, the runways of the old Atarot airport were demolished and infrastructure was prepared for a large bus terminal. (updated October 2021)
Tamar FleishmanFeb-27-2026Qalandiya: On the way to prayer
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