Qalandiya Ramallah open during the day, relatively calm traffic of pedestrians and cars (in contrast to the onslaught on the taxi drivers Sunday afternoon and night). Qalandiya is manned by a paratrooper unit and two "humanitarians".In Qalandiya South we witnessed how a small everyday incident developed into a "security affair" and experienced how helpless we are and all the authorities we call for assistance, when it comes to a stubborn show down in a "power game" on the side of the soldiers! At 5 o'clock three young men approached the soldiers for ID check. There was almost no pedestrians' traffic and so the youngsters went together. The soldier sent them back and insisted "one by one". The youngsters did not accept this logic and began to argue. The argument grew louder and louder. More soldiers came into the "ring" and vivacious body language was employed. But the only physical contacts we could observe were pushes on the chests of the young Palestinians by the soldiers. After a couple of minutes of total confusion, in which we were declared to be the reason for this flurry and the checkpoint as a closed military area, the three Palestinians were handcuffed (!!) and detained near the soldiers. We started to make phonecalls to the Moked (Center for the Defence of the Individual) - it did not help. To O. - it did not help. Twice we called the "humanitarian" from the northern checkpoint, who named the situation "children's quarrel" and wanted to end it in no time - but in this "children's quarrel" one side had the guns and the hundcuffs and the determination to "show them" and he did not succeed. From the Moked we received messages to retreat from the scene for a while, so as not to anger the soldiers. We did - but with no results. In the meantime the soldiers and their commander E. had to find a pretext for the prolonged detention of the men and they had to be declared "dangerous". So they called the police to arrest the three, because they had attacked the soldiers and tried to capture their guns. As witnesses to the event we were very surprised at such presentation of the facts and we declared that nothing of this kind had happenend. The answer was an educational lecture about our ignorance in security matters! At 8 o'clock one of us called the commander of the Civil Administration, and he promised to bring the incident to an end - but also this did not help. At 9:30 the Palestinians were still detained in Qalandiya. But today in the morning the Moked called and they were already sleeping in their homes