Qalandiya, Ar-Ram, Sunday afternoon, 05.02.06Observers: Tamar F., Phyllis W. (reporting)Ar-Ram: We passed through the CP twice, on our way in and on our way back. Nothing unusual was happening. There were no lines of pedestrians but the line of 20 vehicles was making slow progress.Qalandiya: We reached Qalandiya at 3:30 PM. Two lines of about 100 men were waiting to pass in the shed at the northern end of the terminal. Some of the people in line called us over to complain about the length of time they had to wait. Like everyone else, we could see there were no lines in the terminal itself so we called Ophir from the D.C.O. and requested that he do something to speed up transit. Wonder of wonders – we hadn’t even hung up the phone when the carousels began to work and the lines were cut in half. However it took very little time for the lines to lengthen once again as people were on their way home from work. We called Ophir again (and again…). This went on for about half and hour until the flow of people weakened.We went on to see what was happening in the lines of vehicles. Several drivers complained of waiting for 1.5 hours. Although we did not speak to the soldiers, it appeared that the mere fact of our presence, standing and observing what was happening, served to make them work more efficiently. While we stood there we timed the examinations at about 2 minutes per vehicle.When we returned to the sheds, the lines had once again grown long. We called Ophir who was very polite (and even returned telephone calls). He saw to it that the carousels were opened more frequently so that the flow of people was more continuous.In several instances we heard angry soldiers shouting rudely over the P.A. system. When we spoke to the D.C.O. representative at the CP he said that everything that happens at the CP is recorded so that all incidents should be reported directly to the D.C.O., which is what we did.