Qalandiya, Mon 28.10.13, Afternoon
4:00 PM – There was a terrible stench in the air hanging over Qalandiya which was heavy with dust and covered the cars in the parking lot in a thick layer. (Just think what it was doing to peoples’ lungs!) I made a bet with Natanya that it was the smell of tear gas, but I was wrong. The bus drivers whom we asked said that the smell and the dust were coming from the cement factory not far away (jointly owned by Israelis and Palestinians) where they were blasting out the material they were mining. The drivers said that this has been the condition over the past two weeks and that nothing could be done about it.
There were only a few people inside the CP and two passageways were operating. We couldn’t see anyone waiting in the DCO shed.
At 4:25 PM we noticed that the two female soldiers in Passageway 1 had stopped working even though they were still sitting at their post. They just ignored the people in line and didn’t open the turnstile until all those waiting had given up and gone to Passageway 4. From the passageway we could see that one soldier was deeply engrossed in a telephone conversation while closely examining the condition of her fingernails. When they finally paid attention to us they shouted that the passageway was closed and that all people should go through Passageway 4, where we counted 12 already waiting in line. When there were 25 people lined up in Passageway 4 (some of them hurrying to the night shift at their workplace in Atarot Industrial Park), we phoned headquarters and told the soldier who answered what was happening. He transferred our call directly to one of the officers who promised to check the facts and take care of the problem. At 4:40 the PA system announced that Passageway 1 had re-opened.
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 FleishmanJul-21-2026Qalandiya. Conversation in the shadow of the wall
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