Qalandiya - third Ramadan Friday
“The crimes of apartheid and persecution are a part of the policy of the State of Israel that includes the rule of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians inside Israel and in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.”
Thus, in a precedential, recent announcement by Human Rights Watch organization.
The events of Ramadan Fridays confirm the above statement.
What happens in the compound around Qalandiya Checkpoint, when Palestinians long to get to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque, and the leadership of this country whose heads brag everywhere about ensuring freedom of worship while its executive branches carry out a bottleneck of selection without any rationale or explanation…
All that is left is to describe what happens there in the encounter between the human being and the weapon that emphasizes and distils the essence of apartheid and control of another people.
The pandemic and its restrictions is but a puny and transparent excuse for those who see. It’s not the pandemic (magefa). It’s the boot (magaf).
Israel holds millions of Moderna vaccines that are expected to be trashed when they become invalid, whilst in the West bank and the Gaza Strip sickness overflows.
According to international law, as the ruling/occupying power Israel is committed to the health of millions of Palestinians, and to provide them with vaccines.
It is not merely a matter of law or of morality, it’s also because there is no real separation between there and here.
On the face of things, the passage of anyone to pray depends on proving having been vaccinated twice. On the face of it. In actual fact, even the person who presents proof of two vaccinations and valid passage permits – is refused and expelled.
For whoever decided to allow or forbid passage is not human. It’s the computer.
First the few people who arrived were allowed to go through the corral-like tracks (resembling the tracks that beasts are made to run to their slaughter, a term that Ariel Sharon defined when declaring how he’d act against his enemies). At the end of this track sat a soldier in front of a computer screen, and clicked the identification number he saw in the ID presented to him.
The entity that established the outcome, whether the woman or man proceed to their destination, was not a soldier or a policeman or a passage permit or a vaccination certificate – only the computer.
No explanation was given, no consideration nor any humanitarian circumstances. The computer simply states yes or no.
Further, on the other side of the sterile compound surrounding the checkpoint, where usually one finds the women’s entrance, Border Policemen sat, armed, joking around, there to block the few women came all the way there because of many years of habit.
Qalandiya Checkpoint / Atarot Pass (Jerusalem)
See all reports for this place-
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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