Qalandiya

Qalandiya South - 16:15There is a change in the checkpoint. In order to reach the place where you line up to be checked, one has to make a big detour or jump over the beton blocks. Men usually can jump but women and children and older people have to make the long walk around. The position of the soldiers' booths has been changed and is now facing the road, has been moved further to the North, and has been heavily covered with sandbags. Two very narrow lanes that force people to stand very crowded in a line have been formed with beton blocks. These lanes are perceived as particularly humiliating and many people complained bitterly that they are treated like animals. Two volunteers man the checking and although they do it rather quickly and let most people through to the North, the large number of people that needs to cross, (we counted about 100 people at any given point) obligates everyone to wait for up to 45 minutes inside these blocked lanes before they can go through. There was no special treatment for women with children or for older women when we came and r demanded that they bring more soldiers to expedite the procedures and told women (with and without children) not to wait in the line and to go through the side. The soldiers obliged with our demand and indeed the plight for women was eased although men continued to wait for very long time. From week to week we now hear mounting bitterness and anger, it doesn't seem that people can take it for much longer. Some voiced their concern that Ramadan will be coming in about a week and then "no one knows what will happen" if people cannot get home on time to break the fast. A man with a disabled son tried to stand on line but gave up due to the very long wait and decided to go in a car going North. He showed us a document from Hadassah confirming that his son is disabled. We stood by the car lane to see whether the soldiers would cause any problem. In fact, the young soldiers were checking cars quite efficiently and let the people with the disabled boy go through. They saw we were writing and immediately ran towards us and demanded to see what we had written. I showed them "Disabled child let pass without problems". They were quite pleased with what they saw in my notebook and continued being pleaseant to the drivers.Qalandiya North - 17:00At 5:00 it begins to get dark. At the Northern checkpoint we find a very active couple of young soldiers, man and woman, speaking Russian among them and having much fun at the expense of the people. Their body language is very threatening, they really move their hands as if shooing away animals while they say "Sah, sah" (drive, drive) although these are pedestrians. We see this same movement in one of the older volunteers. A couple of women came with some document, actually in Hebrew, and the soldier asked us if anyone of us knew Spanish and could tell him what was their case. We told him that the document said their brazilian passports had been lost and without doubting for a moment he let them through. We received many comments, usually people at the checkpoint were appreciative of our work, although one man asked sarcastically if we were preparing a paper for the university with all this that we were writing, and how would this in any way benefit them. We met several professionals and university professors who were very appreciative of our work. One Al-Kuds psychology professor told me he would like to hug me but it would not be appropriate in this setting (I don't know if he meant a man hugging a woman or a Palestinian hugging an Israeli). It was very touching. At 6:00 p.m. the soldiers begin to close the checkpoint with barbed wire and blocks. The volunteers leave and the regular army soldier remained and allowed pedestrians to continue passing, emphasizing that it is a special favour. About 12 cars are lined in the car lane from North to South. They tell us they had been waiting in the line already for over an hour and when they finally reached the checkpoint the soldiers closed it. The people were extremely angry. We called the Moked and told the drivers to wait a little while. We also gave them cards of the Moked so they could call themselves when in need. One told us he wanted no favors from the soldiers and he would like to cut Sharon's head and turned around. At the Moked they told us they had spoken to Peter Lerner and it would take some time. About 25 minutes later we heard on the radio of the soldiers that they were being ordered to open the car lanes and let everyone with blue IDs go through at both ends of the checkpoint. We left the checkpoint at 18:50.Flying checkpoint in Shuafat:On our way back we found a checkpoint very close to the French Hill junction. They told us they had hot warnings of a car bomb and had a dog sniffing for explosives. When they realized we were Jews the soldiers got very upset and wanted to know what we were doing here. We told them we were in East Jerusalem and they were very upset we were driving through the "Arab" road. They immediately asked the other cars to make place for us to pass and we refused, saying everyone here had a blue ID and we didn't want to go first. They got very angry and said no one would move until we left the place. We left.ConclusionWe have to do something about several important points, but not in a piecemeal way but in an organized way, maybe together with other human rights organizations.1. The checkpoint is closed very early in the evening, doesn't allow people to get there in time if they work in Jerusalem or in Ramallah. The soldiers claim they don't have enough light to check and that is the reason for closing. The older volunteers have other motivation to close because they leave at 6:00 sharp, we see them driving away in their cars parked at the Qalandya airport. The soldiers that remain are willing to let people cross also after 6:00, depending on their mood. So we have to go back to the demand to have the checkpoint open 24 hours a day, which seems to have been agreed by the court (Danny Seidemann knows about this).2. Now with Ramadan approaching, the long wait at the checkpoint will make people extremely angry, because they need to get home on time to break the fast with the family. We should try to make this very clear. Women with children, old people, disabled, should have a preferential lane, non-existent now. This "model eckpoint" is becoming more and more a "model nightmare".