Hizmeh,Qalandiya,12/9/2006 PMWatchers: Susan, Orit and Mor (reporting)Hizmeh 15:20 – The traffic is flowing and the soldiers are not checking.Qalaniya 15:30 – The parking lot is almost totally full. At the checkpoint, there is a line of about 20 vehicles. The crossing time is reasonable. At the pedestrian crossing, there are about 40 people. Only two of the four lanes are open and the lines progress very slowly. There is no division between men and women and children. Several people came out of the DCL. They were not pleased. One of them said that he had been a teacher in Jerusalem since 1983. He teaches at a Christian school even though he himself is Moslem. In order to get to work, he must continually renew his permit to pass. Several days ago, his pass expired and today he got a fax from the principal of his school verifying his work there. When he went to the DCL to request a permit, it was not given to him because he is a Moslem. They said, “Come again tomorrow.” Having no choice, he returned home with the hope that tomorrow they won’t say that the document from his principal had already expired. According to him, there were between 30 to 40 people at the DCL. One of them was a woman of about 70 who visited a sick person in the West Bank and she wanted to return home to Gaza. She was waiting for 3 hours, fell asleep on her chair, and no one took care of her. Suddently, one of the lanes was closed and the soldier announced that everyone must move to lane #1. When we delayed, she turned to us in an insulting manner and said “Women of machsomwatch. The lane is closed. There is nothing of interest here.”In answer to our question about why the lane was closing, she, of course, did not bother to answer. About 40 people were crowded into one lane. The inspections were very slow. Very soon more people arrived and the congestion and pressure grew. Some of them stood in line and some stood behind the turnstile. We turned to the DCL representative and directed his attention to the line and asked what the reason was for closing one of the lanes. He said that he would check it out. The meanwhile, a pregnant woman turned to us and asked us to help her cross quickly because she had troubles with her legs and had a blood problem and could not stand for a long time. We referred her to the DCL representative. He told her to sit on one of the benches outside for 10 minutes until he opened another lane. He said that a group of important people were arriving and because of that, they had to close the second lane. After about 10 minutes, the group passed and the DCL man called to the woman and passed her. The second lane also opened, but the pressure was still very great. We left at about 5:00, but the pressure had still not let up.