Ar-Ram, Qalandiya
Qalandiya, A-Ram, Sunday afternoon, 18.12.05 Observers: Tamar F. and Phyllis W. Phyllis and Tamar reporting A-Ram: We passed through the CP at about 2:30 PM. BP teams are once again "hunting illegals" in the streets, confiscating their papers and sending them to wait at the Checkpoint. A driver waiting in his car near the CP was very upset. He told us that earlier in Qalandiya a female student from Bir Zeit University had been taken aside to be examined by a male, and not a female, soldier. The man was shaking from anger. (Later, at Qalandiya, no one had heard of such an incident and we were told that such an examination is expressly forbidden by the rules.) Qalandiya: We reached Qalandiya at 3:30 PM. The square south of the CP is still in ruins, closed off by a line of cement blocks. However, some daring pushcart peddlers have re-opened for business along the edge of the square.At the CP itself lines were long and crowded and were not moving perceptibly. (A man with two small children whom we met emerging from the CP told us that he had waited 2 hours to pass, all the while holding his asthmatic infant in his arms.)The line of vehicles was also making very slow progress – about one car every half hour. Desperate drivers told us that they had been waiting two hours and more. Four soldiers were lounging at the examination point doing nothing at all. When we approached they shouted at us to go away because "we were interfering with their work." As we moved away a jeep arrived and a major got out and spoke to the soldiers. Apparently on his instructions the soldiers actually went to work and the line began to move more quickly.We returned via the CP lines at about 4 PM, joining the crowded "humanitarian" line. There were lines in front of each of the three carousels but nothing was moving. It turned out that the carousels were out of order and only began to function after two small Palestinian children jumped over the barricade to the other side and fixed them. However, even after repairs the lines moved ahead very slowly. In the "humanitarian" line seniors and women and children were all pressing together. A blind woman of about 70 years of age helplessly tried to hang on to anything firm near her. An old invalid accompanied by his wife found the prolonged wait very difficult and moved from side to side to relieve the pain in his legs. A man with kidney problems needed to use the bathroom frequently. He asked one of the soldiers to tell him only if he had a chance of passing the CP within the next hour. The soldier looked at him and went away without answering, leaving the man embarrassed and humiliated, particularly in view of the rudeness shown him by a young person. Many infants were crying in their mothers arms and little children holding onto their mothers' skirts found it hard to breathe in the crowded line.We find it difficult to believe that the rude and inconsiderate behavior (bordering on brutality under the circumstances) shown by the soldiers is not supported by the higher echelons. The boundaries of human consideration are being breached on the basis of "defense needs." Is it possible that the decision to leave on duty in such a sensitive situation (from a humanitarian point of view) the unit that lost a soldier two weeks ago to the attack of a madman, could be attributed to someone's thinking that by taking out their rage and pain on the local population in collective punishment would somehow cure their problem?After waiting an hour in line without making any progress, we retraced our steps northwards towards Ramallah and went to meet the DCO representatives near the vehicle checkpoint. (Lucky for us that they let us pass through the new terminal. Otherwise who knows how many hours we would have had to wait to pass through Qalandiya CP!)