Qalandiya - burning tyres
“Motherfuckers, they’re burning tires” the policeman in charge of the vehicle checkpoint answered my question about the black smoke rising from the other – the Palestinian – side of the wall.
I hurried over to the smoky side, the injured side, the side that also bleeds from time to time.
Up the hill next to the wall crowded many children by a pile of tires.
Every few minutes they burnt a tire and rolled it down the hill towards the pillbox post, one ring of fire after another.
The sky was covered in thick black smoke that mixed with the fumes of the teargas shot there yesterday.
“There was a chaos here yesterday, lots of shooting” said a resident of the refugee camp.
Yesterday, a teargas grenade smashed the glass windshield of Ahmad’s cart, the cart that is his livelihood, a cart three of whose sides are glass and in which he fries falafel balls.
Until the cart is fixed – no falafel, no livelihood for Ahmad.
The road between Qalandiya and Hizma crosses Jab’a Checkpoint. In the spirit of these evil days there is plenty to report about the soldiers stationed there. For reasons I have specified in the past, I skip over to direct reporting from Hizma village.
“There’s no army here today”, these were the words of a Hizma villager who welcomed me. “On Friday they were here, and there were arrests. But not today.”
As a warning sign of what might happen and a reminder of what already has, the army has placed a concrete barrier in the middle of the eastern entry road to the village.
Hizma
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Hizma
A checkpoint at the north-eastern entrance to the Jerusalem area which was annexed in 1967, at Pisgat Zeev. The passage is allowed to bearers of blue IDs only. Open 24 hours a day.
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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 FleishmanNov-30-2025Qalandiya: Puddles and dirt after the rain
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