Qalandiya - a new decoration to an old madness
A Brand New Set for an Old Insane Play
The pedestrian checkpoint at Qalandiya has been renovated and was launched in glory.
The entrance is a labyrinth of winding paths separated from each other by perforated partitions, leading to a hall where muzack is heard over loudspeakers, and above the heads of the assembled, on a giant screen, the goings-on inside are projected.
The man standing ahead of me in line turned his head and said to me: It is awful.
And the soldiers? Stood facing us, glowing like bridegrooms.
But even if tons of makeup are smeared on a rotten face, these will not make it good-looking or right or just.
Because the checkpoint is not its physical structure. It is not the time it takes to cross. The checkpoint is not the soldiers’ courtesy or lack of it.
The checkpoint is not matter. The checkpoint is essence. Control. Oppression. Castration of the spirit. As for the rest – go figure…
Further on, just a few steps away, is the DCO office. But to reach it one must climb up and down two staircases.
It was about 3 p.m., and as in a bad film that repeats itself, four women – or rather six – with two of them recovering from childbirth and carrying their babies, and one not yet recovered from cardiac surgery and accompanied by a younger woman, perhaps her daughter. Perhaps her sister. They all came from hospital in Hebron and were on their way home. To the Gaza Strip.
The usual departure time of the designated transport to Gaza leaves between 3 and 4 p.m. That day it already left at 1:30 p.m.
What about the women and babies? –“Nothing to do about it. They should come tomorrow.”
From experience we know that trying to persuade the soldiers, appeal to their humanity, is all in vain.
After they mourned and cried and sighed and realized they were not to spend that night at home, they resumed their way back to the West Bank.
Each woman who had just given birth held her baby in one hand and carried her bags in the other, the accompanier of the post-surgical woman – her daughter or sister – carried the bags of the woman who had a very hard time walking and breathed heavily. And I helped her along.
This is not a repeat projection of the same film, because even if the place is the same, the procedures are the same, and even the circumstances are the same – every person is a world unto themselves, to each their troubles, to each their suffering.
Of all the photos I took of the women and babies, I chose to show this one because there is something very touching in the baby’s eyes, and was something very touching in his mother’s.
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 FleishmanMay-13-2025Qalandiya: Back-to-back procedure for transferring patients
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