Qalandiya, Mon 11.7.11, Afternoon
When we arrived at Qalandiya at 3 PM we saw a Jerusalem ambulance parked in the southern square and a Palestinian ambulance stuck in the vehicle CP. When we saw that nothing happened during the next 10 minutes, we phoned headquarters and asked them to get involved. Sure enough, in several minutes we saw the Palestinian ambulance drive through and park beside his Jerusalem partner.
Inside the pedestrian CP: The northern shed was almost empty, but the two active passageways were full because the lines were just not moving. Once again, it looked as though the reason was that the soldiers were not exerting themselves to work efficiently. In Passageway 4, a tired looking elderly woman was sitting in despair on the floor, leaning against the bars. The people around her were not paying her much attention, but when I asked told me that she had lost her ID card and wasn’t being allowed through to East Jerusalem, where she claimed that her sister lived. We called the DCO offices who connected us with Alaa (the DCO representative). He said that the woman had been frequenting the CP for a long time (although this was the first time I’ve seen her in all my 8 years monitoring Qalandiya CP) and it was well known that all she wanted was to reach Beit Hanina (an Arab neighborhood beyond the CP) where she was planning to beg. Alaa said he would come to see that this was the same woman he was talking about and he did show up about 10 minutes later, looked at her from the distance, confirmed that this was she and walked off again. It was a terrible situation.
At 3:30 PM four young men arrived and formed a line in the DCO passageway. The other two passageways were full. The soldiers on duty in Passageway 4 saw the people in the DCO line and knew that the DCO closes at 4, but they preferred to continue to deal with those going to Jerusalem (the same soldiers operate both passageways). After several telephone calls to the DCO office, the soldiers finally let the 4 men through.
Just before 4, I called the IDF Passageway Unit. They didn’t hang up on me (as they used to), but heard my description of the “situation”. They didn’t promise to help. However, shortly afterwards, the lines started moving more swiftly and had almost disappeared after 10 more minutes. At 4:10 there were less than 10 people waiting in Passageway 1 and only one person in Passageway 4. We also got in line, just behind the old woman who had decided to try her luck again. She entered the examination area but couldn’t produce an ID card. The (female) soldier on duty treated her quite rudely at first, but softened up little by little as the woman’s humanity and terrible predicament sunk in. In the end she was completely at a loss and began telling the woman (in Hebrew) that she wished she could help her but wasn’t allowed to let her through and then she asked a young Palestinian man to escort the woman out of the area. The man didn’t do a thing, but another man, impatient at the long wait in line, was allowed into the area in order to escort the woman out. The woman was very weak by this time and could hardly stand on her feet. I helped her out to the northern shed and sat her on a bench while I went to bring her something to eat to resuscitate her. Things in the West Bank look very bad and I expect that we will see more and more situations like this.
We left Qalandiya a little after 5 PM. On the way back to Jerusalem we passed through Lil/Jabba and Hizmeh CPs. Traffic was flowing at both.
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 FleishmanApr-26-2026Qalandiya. Things you see on the way
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