'Anabta, Deir Sharaf, Qalqiliya, Tue 7.4.09, Morning
General
Everywhere we passed there was little traffic and few people, possibly because of the closure
of the west bank which started yesterday at midnight.
Anabta
We arrived to the checkpoint at 0720 and stayed about 30 minutes.
Throughout there were between four to seven cars in either direction.
We see that one taxi has been held at the side of the road. The checkpoint commander explained that although the soldiers did not wave to the driver to proceed, he did anyway, so they decided to stop him. We asked when they would let him go and he said that the driver asked them to call the police. Another soldier approaches, slightly aggressively, to say it is none of our business, the commander should not talk to us and that drivers that misbehave become “good children” when we are around. We are not sure what he means but he decides to leave the matter to the commander and leaves. After a few minutes we see that the taxi is off. The commander said that altogether it was there between 15-30 minutes
All cars, mostly taxis, go through fairly quickly (less than one minute) but the soldiers peek into each one and in some cases, ask to see the ID cards of selected passengers.
There are road works on both sides of the road which suggest that the checkpoint area is being expanded. The area that is being flattened is as wide as the current road.
Deir Sharaf (Barrels)
We arrived to the checkpoint at 0800 and stayed about 30 minutes.
There are very few cars in intervals. Both sides are open. The soldiers hardly check any of the cars but stop every single lorry for about one to two minutes, although these are asked to drive to the side so the queue is not affected. We asked one of the soldiers and he said that they have been asked to check all the lorries because of an alert.
Qalqiliya
We arrived to the checkpoint at 0840 and stayed about 15 minutes.
There are very few cars in intervals. Both sides are open. We noticed that lorries are not being stopped here.