Ar-Ram, Qalandiya, 19.3.2006. Sunday afternoonObservers: Phyllis, Tamar P.The closure called for Purim has been extended, for political reasons, until after the elections.Ar-RamFew people and many soldiers. Inside the checkpoint diesel oil has been spilt from the fuel tanks and we drew the attention of the commander to it and went on.Qalandiya The building in front of the checkpoint is going full steam. It seems that very soon the last of the openings will be closed. At the south side a raised roundabout is being built. Phyllis says maybe they are going to put a statue up there with a general on a horse – in the traditional way of the conqueror.At the checkpoint itself there was no pressure and at the car lane there were two checking areas which were functioning efficiently. The strong wind and sand storm had caused to peddlers to flee and those passing by also made their way as fast as possible.On the way back we saw an increase of pressure because the magnometer had sensed a knife in the bag of one of the women and the woman soldier kept screaming at the woman in Hebrew: “Do you have a knife in your bag?” The woman who did not understand Hebrew was confused and the shouting increased. The turnstile stopped and the shouting through the microphone increased in volume. More women arrived and the woman herself was taken to an inside room, disappeared and the checkpoint continued its work.At this stage it turned out that the communications device by which people can speak to the soldiers and ask to open the buggies’ gate is not working and some women who had babies in baby-carts and needed the gate to be opened found themselves trapped for a long time. We phoned Shadi who promised to deal with this but nothing happened so Phyllis went to the inside the checkpoint and managed to contact the soldier who had not seen or noticed the women even though the cameras cover the entire area. The gate opened. It turns out that most of these devices are not working and no one does anything to have them fixed. One must follow this up.