Jaba (Lil), Qalandiya, Mon 14.6.10, Afternoon
We went first to check out "Givat Ze'ev CP" following the complaints we heard from Samir, a taxi driver we met at Qalandiya 2 weeks ago. At the neighboring gas station we met 3 workers who pass through the CP everyday. Everyone of them told of long hours spent in the lines at the CP. After leaving them, we continued to the CP where we met several workers returning from their day's work who complained that they had waited for hours to cross the CP in the morning. Some mentioned a three hour wait and others spoke of four hours. We followed the workers through the CP. At 3:30 PM there was no problem crossing through the CP and we soon found ourselves on the other side of the Wall. Now, in order to return to Israel we had to get through the CP for real. We entered a narrow fenced passageway (as in Qalandiya, but here there is only one such passageway) which leads to a prefab structure occupied by one lone soldier sitting behind an "environment-proof" window, so isolated that he was barely aware of our presence even when we called to him. The soldier controls the entrance to an examination space where there is a table on which to place packages that need to be inspected while the owner of the packages passes through a magnetometer. There is no X-ray machine to examine the contents of the packages. All of the above is just to point out that this CP is not capable of efficiently processing the hundreds of people who must pass here on their way to work every morning. And this CP is supposed to serve workers from the villages of El Gib, Beit Iksa, Bir Nabala, Katana, Bidu, etc., etc…..
(Before entering the examination space, we asked the commander of the CP what he thought about how the CP operated. He was sitting comfortably in his command post at the vehicle CP. He shouted to us from there that, while there had been some problems in the first few days of operations two weeks ago, now the CP was working well and that passage in the morning was continuous and without delays. Two soldiers standing at his side smiled complicitly in agreement.)
In short, the situation looks desperate and it is imperative that the morning shifts to Qalandiya should also check on conditions at Givat Ze'ev. (Ask Phyllis for driving instructions.)
From Givat Ze'ev, we drove to Betunia CP near Ofer because one worker told us that a new CP was operating there as well. This was not true. Betunia serves only trucks carrying goods and there is no passage there for private vehicles or pedestrian traffic.
We reached Qalandiya at 4:30. There were no lines in the northern shed, the carousel was open and the three active internal passageways were half empty. Both men and women were standing in line in passageway 4 and all were passing without a problem. This passageway appears for some unknown reason to operate more efficiently than the other ones. When we got close to the carousel, a boy of 15-16 was refused passage on the strength of his birth certificate (which is the valid document for children of this age). The boy was only slightly annoyed and went to stand in line at another passageway where he was allowed through with the same document a few minutes later.
Suddenly, at 4:45 PM, the soldiers in passageway 4 decided that this passageway would serve men only and announced over the PA system that the women waiting in line must leave. At the same time we found out that Passageway 1 was serving only Palestinians with Palestinian Authority ID cards. So passageway 2 became the only route for women, but not for women only. For some reason, this passageway is very slow and inefficient so that large numbers of women wait there even though passageway 4 is completely empty. Why are the women punished this way?
We left Qalandiya at about 5 PM. There were no lines of traffic at Lil/Jabba CP nor at Hizme .
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 FleishmanFeb-27-2026Qalandiya: On the way to prayer
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