Qalandiya
A difficult morning.
5:05 queues up to the parking lot.
Only four posts are active out of the three enclosures' lanes.
5:30 All the posts are opened, but the queues remain long. In only two enclosures.
A girl soldier in the aquarium opens lanes at a low frequency, and the beginning of pressure is felt in the air.
People say that yesterday and the day before yesterday it was thus too. And that there also were quarrels. It is assumed that this is done on purpose. We suppose that the soldiers are new ones.
5:50 Soldiers arrive at the aquarium.
6:00 People begin crowding in from the sides. Those who stand in line push back.
Five women try to enter from the side. Usually women are allowed to go to the beginning of the queue, but now the group is too big and they try to push in too harshly. People get angry and narrow the spaces, a heap of people is created, blows, jolting and shouts.
6:10 An officer from the DCO opens the humanitarian gate.
In the meantime the assaults on the enclosures continue. Grave shoving from both directions. Shouts. We talk with a few people who went to the side. They are desperate and angry about the situation: "they turned us into a herd of donkeys", "people fear for their livelihood". They tell us that yesterday they arrived at work (in building sites for instance) at 9:00 in the morning. Others returned home. At the humanitarian gate a few men without certificates try their luck as there is no possibility to enter the enclosures. Without success.
6:50 Miraculously – two men volunteer to stand at the head of two lanes and begin to organize things. They pass the men one by one according to their place in the queue and don't allow them to push. The shoving is put a stop to. The end of days…
7:05 We passed through the humanitarian passage and arrived a lane no. 5. We waited there 40 minutes in a short queue, which didn't move. Sluggishness and inefficiency which explain the long queue of this morning.
7:45 That's it. We left.
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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