Ar-Ram, Qalandiya, Tuesday, 29.3.05, PM, Observers: Iris B., Roni H., (reporting)Ar-Ram, 16:10, Very little traffic, both pedestrians’ and vehicles’ One can see thedisasterous impact of the Jerusalem “envelope” on this neighborhood, whichis isolated from the north by the wall and from the south by the checkpoint.On our way to Qalandiya we are stuck in the chaotic traffic jam near whatonce has been the Ar-Ram junction – all cars going west have to pass throughthe narrow opening of the wall!Qalandiya 16:30Most peddlars have been chased away by the soldiers a couple of hoursbefore. One of them complained that his ID has been confiscated by a soldier3 hours ago. We go to the checking area and find Emil from the DCO. Hewants to help but his first reaction is that this “cannot be the soldiers ofthe checkpoint, because they have nothing to do at Qalandiya square”! (onlyto chase the peddlars!) We insist that he looks for the ID and and aftersome minutes of searching he really finds it. On one of the computers, whichwere in use at the checkpoint, he makes sure that the peddlar is not”wanted” and then returns the ID. Three hour of waiting – for what!? Wediscern the DCO officer Amos among the soldiers and complain to him aboutthe ID confiscation. He gets angry and agrees that this should not havehappened. But what will he do about it? We know that the officers declare IDconfiscations as not legal but we also know that it happens every dayeverywhere ! An Israeli car with three passengers has been detained at the checkpointsince 14:30. Yossi, a manufacturer from Petah Tiqua has come to Kufr Aqeb tocheck business opportunities and was stopped on his way back. Now they werewaiting for the police to arrive. Yossi was under shock! Israeli soldiersare preventing him from going home, do not relate to him and do not tell himwhy they have called the police! Is this possible? In Petah Tiqua theyobviously have never heard about the occupation! We were amused by thisabsurd situation where we had to take care of the human rights of Israelis,who had no idea, why all this hapened to them! We called the DCO and theCivil Administration and learned that they were not responsible for Jewishcitizens and that we have to get into contact with the Benjamin brigade. Butall the staff of Benjamin was at a meeting and only at 19:00 could weestablish contact with Tamar who tried to sort things out. When until 20:30the police has not yet arrived and after six hours of waiting they werefinally released and allowed to go home! Yossi got his first lesson inoccupation practices, but we felt that except of being flabbergasted hecould not absord all the information we tried to feed him with!