Qalandiya – Anata 7.1.04 afternoon MachsomWatchers: Maya BH, Eva P, Ivonne M. 15:15 – 15:50, Qalandiya checkpointTerribly cold weather in Qalandiya, made people waiting in line extremely angry. It was so cold and rainy that the soldiers checking the cars from south to north were letting many go through without checking in order not to take their hands out of their coat pockets. The pedestrians waiting in line to pass from north to south were very upset because waiting in this icy rain, even for 15 minutes, becomes very uncomfortable and made them furious. They asked the soldiers to expedite the checking and some asked to stand under the roof close to the checking booths. The woman soldier refused and told a man: “You should thank me for….”[inaudible] but obviously the Palestinian didn’t think there was anything to thank her for and told her so. To this “ungrateful” reply she threatened to keep him for an hour for not behaving. When we tried to talk to her she told us not to interfere with her work. We called the Hotline of the Civil Administration to complain that in these inhumane weather conditions she was making the life of Palestinians more unbearable, and Yuval told us that they are planning changes at the checkpoint that will prevent this “unpleasantness” from some soldiers. Item in today’s newspapers: A special force of checkpoint police/soldiers is being prepared, which will take the place of the soldiers now in charge. I suspect that this new force will be much more rigid and less lenient with humanitarian [urgent, usually medical] and plainly human cases. This is what we have seen with the “checkpoint specialists” (Uriel is one of them): they are not angry or aggressive but they make NO EXCEPTIONS. Likewise, they suspect that every permit is a fake and every story is a lie. Things will be worse for Palestinians trying their luck at the checkpoint.After 50 minutes, when the rain became very icy, we left. Anata checkpointThis is the checkpoint on the way out from Anata towards Jerusalem. It is manned by Border Police. They were not friendly; seemed to know that they had to tolerate us and said we could do our job but not talk to the people, not stand close, take our car out of…(whatever).A long line of cars was waiting to be checked in order to continue West. There is another entrance to the village from the East. Only cars with Israeli plates can go through this checkpoint. When we arrived we saw a middle aged man discussing with the Border Police in the jeep. The policeman was writing a long story and asked them to sign. This went on for about 1/2 hour. Then they were told to go back to their car and wait. We approached them then and asked why they were detained. The police then came to us and angrily told us that we were talking to their detainees and were not allowed. But since the detainees were sitting in a car that was for sale and the telephone number was announced, we could call them and get the story from them.The driver, an Israeli Arab citizen, was bringing his uncle from Hebron to visit his dying father in Hadassah. As the uncle from Hebron didn’t have a permit, the Israeli citizen was considered to be driving an “illegal alien” and was ordered to go to Atarot, where his car would be confiscated and he would be tried and would have to pay a fine, while the “illegal” Hebronite would be imprisoned or returned to Hebron. Through Yehudit E. we got hold of Gad’an, a senior officer in the Border Police and he told us he would try to help. However, a few minutes later, the driver told us he had been ordered to go to Atarot with his car and his uncle. When we called Gad’an again he said he could do nothing because the Hebronite was illegally out of Hebron and also I had said that the Hebronite was 70 when he wasn’t even 60. The truth is I really thought he was quite old. We left Anata at 17:30 but called the driver again 1.5 hours later and he told me he and his uncle had been released, together with his car, and he had had to sign a NIS 5000 bail in order to ensure he would come to the trial that would take place in the future, and he was on his way to see his father. We were relieved, it seems that Yehudit’s friend did help after all.