Qalandiya Thursday PM, 5.2.2004MachsomWatch Observers: Batya S, Leah N, Limor Y, Tami B (reporting) Ar-Ram:Traffic moving but very sparse. Another victory for the Occupation. The Palestinians are gradually learning to despair. At Qalandiya, there is considerable destruction as construction goes on.The Qalandiya South checkpoint was knocked down and rebuilt. There are also changes on the Qalandiya North side. Neither the IDF soldiers nor the construction workers were willing to say what would be built there, but it appears that these are the first steps toward a permanent checkpoint with a separate inspection installation in the middle. (Dani Seidman contends that the northern checkpoint, one of the two that is planned in the Jerusalem encirclement, will be in Kfar Yakub which is further north, but it can be assumed that the checkpoint will be at the fence). There were no vendors at the North CP, and only a few at the south. Soldiers from a battalion of the IDF Engineering Corps who were stationed there, with the assistance of some Border Police, were still there. There was no officer on duty: in essence, there was no soldier responsible for the checkpoint (Yuri, the person officially responsible, was as dense as usual). That was another thing which we learned: The method is that the officers, who are more adult and reasonable, sit at headquarters and are not responsible for the upheavals that occur at the checkpoint. On the contrary: they are called upon from time to time, but the horrors can continue to go on without interference. For an hour, two men labored to reinstall the metal detectors at the checkpoint. As so as they finished, one of the soldiers used a detector, without pretesting it. From the moment they operated them, the detectors started beeping without end. Every movement set them off. The line, which had required a ten to fifteen minute wait now took an hour. The soldiers at the checkpoint, without an officer, with no one responsible, decided on their own to shut off the metal detectors and to us it only in those cases where people looked suspect. In the two weeks since the Engineering Corps batallion arrived, there has been a serious regression from the norm, with no utilization of reasonable flexibility. They work strictly “by the book!” Therefore, they did not allow little children , without a certificate of registration to pass, and confiscated photocopies of the certificate from others. They demanded that all the children stand in a long line, screamed at parents with babies in their arms who tried to get to the head of the line. We called the IDF’s Hotline [for humanitarian alerts], to the DCO [IDF Civil Administration office], and to Fares. Fares said that those were the orders and that we should call him when they were not observed. At the Hotline, they said that little children are permitted to cross without certificates and it was forbidden to confiscate photocopies of them. There were two brothers, one with an ID and the other with a photo of a certificate who was not allowed to pass. We called Headquarters. Meanwhile, the soldiers screamed at a young boy and pushed him. He shouted back. In the end, he passed, but the photocopy of his certificate was confiscated. There was a woman with two children. She had a blue [Israeli]ID, but they did not have a transit permit. They begged and pleaded. In the end, they passed, largely thanks to Grigori, a soldier from the Military Police — the only one that evinced an element of flexibility. One woman said that a soldier had told her to get a medical certificate and that she would be allowed to pass. When she got there two hours later with the permit, no one remembered her. There was a family, parents and five children, some very young. The parents were required to stand at the the end of a long line. The children were allowed to wait at the side. And there was an [IDF reservist] volunteer who looked at the medical permit of a woman who said that she had back problems. She said “With heels like those, she has no back problems. Let her come to me at the end of my shift and I will give her Feldenkrais [physical therapy] treatments”. (Recommendation. Do something about the volunteers who are often the worst of the worst.) It was a day without unusual happenings at Qalandiya. Note to MachsomWatchers who go to the checkpoints at Qalandiya:The commander of the Engineering Corps battalion is named Shachar; it would be a good idea to get his phone number.