Ar-Ram, Qalandiya, 13.8.2006, Sunday afternoonObservers: Natanya G. Tamar F. (reporting), Natanya translatingCheckpoint Ar-ram At 3.00 as we went northwards the checkpoint was empty of those returning and also when we returned at 6.00 we saw very few cars exiting and a little boy in Judo clothes at the pedestrian lane. The commander of the checkpoint, Nir Levi, demanded that we remove ourselves to a distance of 50 metres because these were the orders, so he said, of the military police Gabai and he said that we were bothering him and “sitting in his checkpoint”.Checkpoint Qalandiya The passage leading to the pedestrian area has been narrowed about a month ago and does not allow the passage of prams and certainly not wheelchairs. Although I had requested before that the humanitarian center do something about this I was told that there was a special area where these prams and chairs could pass. We looked everywhere and asked and there is no such thing. We asked the taxi drivers who sit at the entrance and they said that when a handicapped person arrived they carried him through and the chair was then somehow passed through also by hand. The bottom part of the passage is 75 centimeter (measured). We tried to pass to the area at the District Commissioner’s Office but the soldier at turnstile 5 which leads to it would not allow us through. He said he had received his orders from the blue police and that we were not allowed in that area. We tried to find where this order had originated from. Inspector David Abuchatzeira (the commander of the area) said that he had no problem with our passing through if the people of the DCO did not complain that we interfered with them. Kobi admitted that we had never bothered him and besides all this someone from up there did not want us inside. We asked to speak to Shadi (the rank above him) but he was not present . Kobi said maybe Peretz had given the order. At any rate it was past four o’clock and the DCO was closed. Inspector David Abuchatzeira would not give us his phone number but did give us an open invitation to come and have coffee with him in his office. Kobi promised to check out in depth what was happening and we remained outside. We went through to the post office and to our surprise it was open. Muhamed who works there explained that in the last month many of the postal workers were on leave and so the hours had been shortened and we had always found the post office closed.Checkpoint Leel On the way back from Qalandiya in the direction of Hizma (road 45) we came to the checkpoint which was manned by reservists who had received order 8. They said that the new checkpoint replaced that of Jaba which was dismantled and this one put up instead because of lessons that had been learned as a result of the death of the settler boy, Oshri a month and a half ago.