Ar-Ram, Qalandiya Mon. 30.05.05 a.m.Observers: Anat H, Edna P, Yehudit R (reporting)Ar-Ram: 6:40 40 cars waiting to cross the checkpoint in the direction of Jerusalem. The traffic is moving slowly. Qalandiya. 6:50 The current checkpoint is in bad shape — a lot of garbage all around. The plastic that protects the checkpoint is torn and in pieces, and it all looks very neglected. Near the place, they are leveling the area and the work is in an advanced stage. From afar, we see yellow colored buildings. Near the children who are passing, we see heavy work machines moving rocks and placing them on the hill. The lack of security measures endangers the people and the noise is hard on the ears.In front of the checkpoint (in the direction of Qalandiya) there is total confusion and lack of any order in the traffic. Tens of cars approach from all directions. The circle is not orderly and there are hundreds of pedestrians in the direction of the checkpoint or in the middle of it.About 20 cars are waiting and must wait for about 20 minutes. The traffic is moving slowly. We crossed to the other side. A man of about 40 who crossed previously with a small child in his arms told us about the difficulties of the children who have mental disabilities or autism. Their transport from East Jerusalem awaits them in front of the checkpoint (if it crossed through the checkpoint there would be too long a wait to get back), and these children have handicaps. Waiting patiently in a line is hard for them and also the soldiers have no patience. Therefore, a man was trying to get them a special pass to cross so that they would not have to wait. He gave us his details and that of a woman with the same problem. We returned and waited in the line with everyone else — the women’s line and that for old people and children was especially long. Therefore, two of us decided to go into the men’s line. One of the soldiers directed us to the “humanitarian” line (that is, to the longer line because it turned out that the stringent inspection of the men was faster because there they use an electronic device.8:00, We decided to return via the internal road to Ar-Ram. At the intersection of one of the streets there was a flying checkpoint where taxis were stopped for inspection. I.d.’s were asked for and an old black man was detained. Anat called the border police to find out why there was a checkpoint. We are not talking about an entry way to Jerusalem. Nava, the army spokesperson said that they were checking for people who were there without legal permission. Later it turned out that she was talking about a different checkpoint. The soldiers behaved courteously toward us and toward those being checked. They are part of a “personnel” unit. Conversation with a cab driver: All of us want to be cab drivers because we have no other way of suporting ourselves. Not everyone has a permit from the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli police stopped them and checks licences. There are flying checkpoints every day in some other spot. We decided not to wait until the old man was released (later we called him and he had been released and went to his place of work). 9:00. At Ar-Ram the traffic was moving quickly. There were 9 detainees waiting at the side. One had a blue i.d. and said that he employed 10 workers (he did not appear to be a contractor but rather one of the workers) The soldiers said that they were waiting for the police and the detainees would have to wait until then. Needed:1. We must deal with the passage of children with disabilities through the Qalandiya checkpoint.2. To raise a cry about the absence of security measures in building the new checkpoint.