Bir Nabala, Qalandiya, Ar-Ram, Wednesday, 24.1Present: Lea and Hanna (who also reported), Noa D. TranslatingBir Nabala15:35 – The gate from Route 443 is open. The traffic through the checkpoint is fluent. No detainees. Qalandiya16:35 – We came in my car through Atarot. There was no traffic jam in the lane heading towards Ramallah.17:00 – Traffic jam in the (empty) minibuses lane, as well as the private cars’ lane, in the square before the checkpoint for the vehicles coming into Israel. Many military vehicles are fitted into that square. 17:05 – At the entrance to the turnstiles area, line no. 5 has an electric sign posted above it: “For students, teachers and elderly people”. Lines 1 and 4 are open. Occasionally, there is an announcement in the loudspeaker to the people crowding in line 1 that line 4 is also open for passage. It takes us 10 minutes to pass the full length of line 1. At the exit, there is a clear sign indicating the post office’s activity hours. All in all, the traffic in the checkpoint is quite sparse. The dirt road, near the wall, in the direction of Jerusalem has been paved. Ar-Ram17:50 – We drove my car from Ibrahim to HaKirkas Junc. There, we did a U-turn, after seeing that the metal gate in the direction of Qalandiya is closed and that the construction of the wall Eastward is progressing. We returned in the lane of cars heading for Jerusalem and stopped by the soldier at the checkpoint. The soldier informed us that we cannot drive past him, heading North from Jerusalem, because “from him onward are The Territories” (!!!!) How will we know? We asked him (because until then, we knew it had been allowed). “There is a sign”, he said. Yes, there is a new sign, hanging at the entrance to the Qalandia road, at Ar-Ram checkpoint. The soldier asked whether we had “a number”, because the exit from Ar-Ram to Jerusalem is only for “people who have numbers”. Others have to exit Ar-Ram through the Qalandiya checkpoint.A speculation: in the exasperating queues of cars that were lined up Northward in the direction of Ar-Ram month ago, the vehicles, licences and vehicle owners were examined cautiously. Possibly, the examination back then was meant not only for discovering stolen cars (as we were informed then by the soldiers), but also for establishing who the regular checkpoint-passers are.I tried to explain to Lea why Israelis are not allowed to enter Ar-Ram territory and why only the exit via Qalandiya checkpoint is allowed – tried and failed. I couldn’t even tell her what is allowed and what is not and to whom. The only certain thing is that this is another step in the formation of something bad and it needs to be monitored.