Afternoon
A-RAM AND QALANDIYA, Tuesday afternoon, 23 December 2003.MachsomWatcher Observers: RH, NO and DG (reporting).15:30, A-Ram checkpoint:A crisp, cold afternoon; the traffic flows without incident. 15:35, Qalandiya South checkpoint:More movement than we usually see at this time of day.A teacher and three students detained for the past half-hour at the checkpoint pending inspection of their IDs. They repeat a complaint we have just heard from another source about the morning activity at the Ma'aleh Adumim checkpoint, where, they claim, the IDF has been refusing to let people go through until after 10 AM, by which time many despair of reaching their college classes or work-places and return home to yet another wasted, frustrating day. "I missed two exams this morning," we're told by an el-Quds student training to be a laboratory technician.RH approaches the woman soldier to see whether the check of the IDs can be speeded up. Now, suddenly, there are another twenty young men whose Palestinian IDs have been taken for checking. But the intervention seems to have paid off, and the woman soldier, smiling broadly at us, appears with a bunch of cards and begins calling out names; within twenty minutes or so the crowd has completely dispersed. We also noticed that some people's documents were being checked a second time as they came from the northern end of the checkpoint towards A-Ram. Meanwhile Watcher N.O. has been checking the line of cars and trucks. There is a long backup and it takes three or four minutes to check each vehicle. There is no second lane, although the occasional "protektzionnaire" [privileged individual, with connections] drives against the northern flow of the traffic and is allowed through quickly.Why is there such a long line? N.O. inquires; and "pressure" is the vague answer. Throughout the time we were there, the "pressure" continued: checking was slow and drivers waited up to an hour and half to pass through. A young man wheeling a handcart made multiple trips back and forth across the checkpoint with computer printers and other hardware, a triumphant smile on his face as he watched the line of vehicles. At the northern pedestrian checkpoint, the soldiers repeat their mantra: "If you have no permit, go via Surda!" And Surda is indeed open, the checkpoints have gone and [public taxi] vans ply the two km switch-back road from Ramallah towards Bir Zeit University. But, we are informed, IDF jeeps do suddenly appear at peak hours in the morning and afternoon and carry out spot checks. The logic of the IDF's enthusiasm for Surda continues to escape us. What we are sharply aware of is the cost of being forced to go via Surda in terms of money and sheer time-wasting frustration. Palestinians permitted to travel via Qalandiya to A-Ram or any of the nearby villages will have a trip of between a few minutes walk or a ten to fifteen minute taxi ride costing as little as one and a half shekels. Travelling via Surda to the same place involves a taxi to Ramallah, another to Surda, and a third to their ultimate destination. Allowing for waiting time at each of these stations and more time lost as the "service" vehicles drop off and pick-up other passengers, the trip will take between an hour and an hour and a half and cost at least 20 shekels. To those who must cope with this to visit family and friends-- the expression "Go via Surda!" is galling in the extreme! As it got colder and darker, two young women -- sisters-in-law-- sought our help. They came from Ein Yabrud, north of Ramallah, and wanted to visit their parents in A-Ram. No, they had no permits. One had a student card showing that she was enrolled at the el-Quds Open University in the Ramallah District. The other had her Palestinian ID and an ultrasound image of the 12-week-old fetus that she was carrying. We approached Ihab, the checkpoint commander, who has sometimes, under pressure, been moved to exercise some discretionary judgement and bend the rules slightly. Today he was obdurate. Why do they live in Ein Yabrud if their parents come from A-Ram, he asked us. And what's this, he wanted to know when the mother-to-be shyly produced her ultrasound picture. "What, it's already got a name!"And again the refrain: "Let them go through Surda!" RH embarked on a series of phone calls to the IDF humanitarian centre: "We'll get back to you!" is not the answer one wants to hear again and again standing in the cold wind with two pale, miserable, shivering young women, one of whom is pregnant. There is a request from the humanitarian centre for her ID details. These are supplied. But in another ten minutes there comes the final "No!" and the ultimate insult, the patronizing, insensitive advice: "Rather than spending time out there on a cold evening, let them come tomorrow to the Beit-El DCO [civil administration office] and get themselves permits! I, too, know the DCO, and that's my advice to them!" How does one tell anyone who claims so confidently to "know the DCO" about the endless lines, the windows that never open , the permits that may cost more than one morning's long wait, that may indeed never be issued. How does one tell those who do not want to know, just exactly what goes on at the checkpoints?