A-Ram. Qalandiya, Bir-Naballah, Lil
A-Ram. Qalandiya, Bir-Naballah, Lil, SUnday afternoon, 27.5.2007Observers: Natanya G. Debbi and Renana ( new member) Tamar F. (reporting)Natanya translating.Ar-Ram 3.45 Border police bored without anything to do joked with a seller of ice-cream. Two detainees on the side. When we arrived the commander tried to distance us but after a few minutes of conversation acceded. He said that although they had the ids of the two detainees at the checkpoint only a 'hunter" could free them. He allowed us to speak to them (a gesture we have not received in a long time) and one said he had been there 4 hours and one an hour and a half. We phoned the humanitarian centre and asked to help to free them. We exchanged telephone numbers and left and 30 minutes later he phoned to say that they had been sent on their way.Qalandiya checkpoint 4.15 Two lanes were open while we were there. At the car lane the security guards tried to send us off but we insisted saying that the pavement had been made so that we could stand on it. One of the signs that the state is privatizing itself is expressed in the fact that the dog trainer is a civilian hired to give service at the checkpoint. We saw dogtrainers entering cars and leaving and we told that they were there for a certain number of hours each day.5.00 We saw two guards leading a Palestinian boy in the direction of the northern circle through the car lane to the army basis. It looked strange as there did not seen to be any hostility between them and the boy. The soldiers said that in the monitor they had seen him going backwards and forwards in a suspicious manner. Sisu, the policeman, went to him and the boy asked to be arrested and taken to the war room for questioning.Checkpoint Bir-Naballah 6.00 we parked about 50 metres from the checkpoint and stood opposite the soldiers. One of them came up to asked and told us to move us as it was a closed army area. We demanded to see the order and the soldier said that he himself could not care, that for his part they could close the checkpoint but those were his orders. Of course we stayed where we were. There was no segregation but because of an "alert as far as trucks were concerned" ( in the words of the soldier0 the contents of one were carefully checked. This took 15 minutes but cars continued streaming past in the other lane.A taxi driver told us that on Saturday there was great pressure on the checkpoint and a long waiting period. We gave him the card of the organization and asked him to let us know each time that there was a difficult situation.