‘Atarot, Hizma, Jaba (Lil), Qalandiya, יום ב’ 20.4.09, אחה”צ
Natanya G. and Phyllis W.
Phyllis reporting
15:30: At Atarot CP 30 cars were waiting in line. We timed passage at approximately 6 minutes. The soldiers on duty at the CP reported that there were security alerts.
16:00 Qalandiya: We stopped to talk to one of the coffee vendors in the parking lot. He told us that many of his clients had recently reported that their passage permits had been confiscated in the CP.
Three passageways were operating inside the CP and there were no lines. We passed through the pedestrian CP and went to check the vehicle CP. From the distance we could see that the line of cars at Atarot CP was still quite long. At Qalandiya the soldiers were examining the crowded buses on their way to Ramallah. Trucks and private cars on their way to Ramallah were not being checked at all. There were no buses waiting in the northern square (at the entrance to the CP). We noted that all the buses entering the CP from the north were empty – they carried no passengers at all.
We also met the bank clerk from Jerusalem (thanks to the past but now-suspended "family unification" program) who works in Ramallah and who spoke with the Sunday MW team. He was not allowed through Qalandiya CP on Monday as well – the soldiers refused to recognize the note confirming that his case was under consideration by the Ministry of the Interior. The poor man was forced to go back to Ramallah and look for a place to sleep.
The female soldier checking people's papers in Passageway No. 2 was very nervous and at the end of her tether. Again and again she shouted into the PA system: "khuti kol ishi fi salla" (i.e. put everything in the basket [of the x-ray machine]) as if the people currently on line were the same as those she'd yelled at a few minutes earlier. The crude behavior of our soldiers is unbelievable.
Workers returning to the Palestinian territories after their day's work told us that all the passengers on buses passing through Qalandiya from Ramallah are now required to get off and pass through the CP on foot – "all" includes old people and sick people and pregnant women.
We also met a tourist from Korea who told us that she had come to visit Israel out of love for the country but was very disturbed to see that the conditions of the Palestinians were very bad. Out of concern for Israel she wanted to let us know that the difficult conditions of the Palestinians would only increase their hatred.
We left Qalandiya and returned to Jerusalem via Lil and Hizmeh. There were no lines.
'Atarot
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Atarot
Atarot was a workers' settlement destroyed during the War of Independence, where the Arab village of Qalandiya now stands, in the southwestern part of Atarot Airport, built by the British Mandate. After 1967, the Atarot industrial zone was established nearby, and until the completion of the wall from the Qalandiya checkpoint to Road 443, a checkpoint was in place. A new Jewish neighborhood is currently planned for the old airport area.
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Hizma
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Hizma
A checkpoint at the north-eastern entrance to the Jerusalem area which was annexed in 1967, at Pisgat Zeev. The passage is allowed to bearers of blue IDs only. Open 24 hours a day.
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Jaba' (Lil)
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Jaba' (Lil) In fact, the Jaba checkpoint is east of the Qalandiya checkpoint. Its declared purpose is the prevention of Israeli citizens from entering Area A. A road checkpoint for vehicles, located on Road 65, borders the southern fence of Kfar Jaba, about three kilometers east of the Qalandiya checkpoint, on the road leading to the settlement of Adam on Road 60. Archaeological excavations within the village found the remains of a cloth house from the First Temple period. The events that led to the construction of the checkpoint are precisely here: on the day of the abduction of Gilad Shalit and before the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War, a 17-year-old man from one of the settlements was abducted by a Palestinian cell. His body was found several days later at the entrances to Ramallah. A military investigation revealed that his abductors had taken him along this route. The checkpoint was set up to prevent future kidnappings and to warn settlers from traveling to Ramallah and entering Area A (which is forbidden for Israelis). The checkpoint that operates around the clock. Usually only vehicles traveling in the direction of Ramallah are inspected. (November 2016): Every morning, when the settlers en masse travel to Jerusalem on Route 60 and every afternoon they return from Jerusalem on Route 60, the army initiates a traffic jam at the entrance to the Jaba checkpoint and stops the movement of Palestinians traveling toward Route 60. (February 2020): In the last two years the checkpoint has not always been manned. Sometimes the soldiers come and just stand, sometimes they come and stop and check those who enter the village, sometimes they patrol the alleys of the village, sometimes they fire stun grenades and gas and sometimes they invade houses and stop young people, say those passing through the Hazma checkpoint. (Updated February 2020)
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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 FleishmanApr-26-2026Qalandiya. Things you see on the way
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