Jalama, Shaked, Rihan, Wednesday, December 14, 2005, AM Observers: Yocheved G., Netta G. (reporting)Jalama, 06.40-06.50At the end of the pedestrian “sleeve”, there is a poster: a red flower and on it the slogan, “the hope of all of us.” The hope of the closure and the CP. The soldiers tell us that we have no reason to be at the CP because this morning they were told that there is a closure. They did not tell us what the situation was yesterday. The only passage is for “humanitarian purposes.”The manager of the sewing plant in Jalama and three (women) supervisors from Sandala go through to the plant in Jalama. The supervisor explains to us that it is more convenient to work there, but you have to keep an eye on the Palestinian women. It would seem that the hope is also the hope of exploitation!Shaked, 07.30-08.00The soldiers new to the CP hold lists of those who are allowed to go through. They are not holding weapons aimed at the pupils. The little ones go through without any inspection. The older pupils have their documents and their schoolbags inspected. The soldiers are friendly. They seem to be surprised that the Shaked CP is not at the Green Line.Rihan, 08.10 – 09.30As we go through the sleeve from the parking lot to the pedestrian CP, we are told that the terminal has been opened. One person says that it was opened late and the situation is bad. Another person says that passage in the building is actually very quick. What bothers him is the fact that he cannot take his Israeli wife to visit his parents in Yaabed. By order of the general, the Rihan CP is closed to Israelis, except for the settlers from Mevo Dotan.We reached the entrance to the terminal just as do the residents of the seam zone who want to go through to the West Bank. The soldiers hesitated for a moment wondering if we are allowed to enter, and then the (woman) commander, Lieutenant A., arrived and forbade our entrance “because this is a sterile area.” A., the commander of the Military Police unit in charge of passage in Rihan, invited us to visit the place when there is no passage for Palestinians: before 5.00 in the morning or after 9.00 in the evening … She said that she lives in the small camp above the CP and it would take her only a few minutes to come down to show us around and she would do this willingly.We glanced inside from the entrance and saw two manned inspection posts and very little traffic. According to A., about 115 people went through from the opening of the CP at 05.00 until 08.30. All of them, except for one, had appropriate permits.The parking lot and the shed on the Palestinian side are the same as ever. The gate is opened electronically by a soldier in the cabin. He allows a few people to enter at once. They go through the carousel, then through an electronic gate and pass another carousel and then go into the sleeve that leads them into the building and through it to the seam zone. We could not see inside from this side. In the parking lot we met the person who did not go through. He is a resident of Kafin with an agricultural permit for passage through the locked gate. The man told us that he had left the olives that he had picked in sacks on his land, and that the gate near Kafin was closed without any warning. The man asked to pass through only one more time so as to take his produce. We did not succeed in helping him at Rihan and telephone calls to the DCOs in Salem and in Tulkarm did not help. In the end we left him the phone number of Ms. Amar, the lawyer who is handling matters related to olive-picking for “Guardians of the Law – Rabbis for Human Rights.” (She could not be reached when we were at the CP.)At the vehicle CP the traffic is especially thin.