Qalandiya, Wed 6.5.09, Afternoon
Natanya translating
16.15 – Qalandiya. The south parking lot: The loudspeaker on the southern tower gives out command in Arabic to those underneath.
16.25 – No pressure. Sleeves 2 and 3. 15-20 people in front of each. People creep into the closed cages looking for the one that is open.
16.30 – About 30 people in front of the open cage.
16.50 – About 50 people wait in front of the open cage.
17.10 – About 70 people wait in front of the only cage. 2 sleeves are open.
Approximately at 16.30 a resident of Idhna gives us the following description.
At about 11 am he arrived at the checkpoint with two people. He had wanted to pay a large sum at the Post office which was a guarantee to free a prisoner at "Ofer". The man who spoke to us was not allowed to pass. Two others got permission to go through and paid the sum. And then "disappeared". Their telephones were closed. The man asked us to get the receipt from the Post Office so as to free the man at Ofer today.
We phoned the Operations Room and the DCO 2-3 times. We did not really know how to help him. 3 phone calls to the humanitarian centre, where we got the same response. The line to the commander was busy.
We could not find the commander of that day at the checkpoint. We also turned to Hanna B. The operations room and the DCO said that the man who had gone to the post was blacklisted. In the meantime the man who had approached us left. We have his cell phone number.
17.30 – The cars streamed through.
17.35 – A Palestinian ambulance arrives and is detained for 14 minutes. The ambulance from east Jerusalem is already waiting in the car park. A woman soldier and a man guarding her deal with the passage. We saw a woman, evidently after an operation and a boy. Because we could not see well we did not see who was put into the ambulance.
17.52 – The ambulances leave.
18.00 – The red shed is empty.
A man shows us a permit that he has to go through for one day to attend a funeral. All the details and the limitations seemed to us to be correct but he had not been allowed to go through. He said he had been a prisoner in the past and that he had given up and would not try to get through again. We have a copy of the permit which had not been honoured.
18.05 – Sleeve number 5 was opened for those with blue IDs. Next to the window stood a young mother with a pram and two bags. A white blanket and a baby in her arms. When she was asked for the second time to fold the pram (and this when the baby was in her arms) and to go again through the x-ray machine we told the soldier that the pram had already been checked. We have no words to describe the tone and the humiliating attitude with which the soldier answered us. A representative of the army at the international border passage (welcome to those coming to Qalandiya). We stayed at the side but the line was held up because of us. We went to another sleeve. The young mother again passed the pram through the x-ray machine. The humanitarian gate was opened for her. The second sleeve and the last she had to push through together with the folded pram, the bags and the baby. There no one opened the humanitarian gate for her. She said, "I live in America. This is my first time here. I don't know how to behave here".
Unfortunately, at this checkpoint there are quite a few people who don't know how to behave and there is no one there to keep an eye on them and demand decent behaviour.
In the end we phoned the man with the guarantee: the prisoner had been freed and the receipt too.
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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