Falamiya North Checkpoint (914), Falamiya South Checkpoint (935), Jayyus north 965
Falamiya North 935. We arrived at six, the gate was open, it turned out that the opening hour was shifted to 05:30, closing to 06:10. The end of the day was brought forward to four o’clock. The people expressed satisfaction (everything is relative) at the amount of authorizations and at the behavior of the soldiers. There are people who get authorizations for two months, for the purpose of olive picking, and for two years for current word. 14 tractors arrived, some towing trucks with people.
Falamiya South 914 – the opening hour was brought forward to 06:20 and the closure
was fixed at 06:45. Owing to the changes the tractors arrived at the last moment.
Jayyus West 965 is opened mainly during the olive picking season. It is opened at 06:55 for 15 minutes. For us the way is long and we arrived at the end of opening time. Only 5 tractors arrived.
Jayyus South 1012. The opening hour is 07:20. When we arrived it turned out that the lock was stuck and wouldn’t open. Then we were informed that the failure began on the former day. Although they were promised that the matter would be repaired, nothing happened.
After some attempts by the military policeman, the worker brought a hammer and made it possible for them to try and break the lock, but to no avail. After some telephonice attempts and a patrol car which tried to help, the IDA didn’t succeed in opening the gate. The the military policewoman announced that somebody would come to open the gate at two o’clock only and she would let the people enter. At this stage we decided to leave.
We were south of Jayyus, at a some distance from the road, and then Annelien remembered that there was a straight road to Nabi Ilias, which bypassed Nebi Elias. The question was what the situation was now. While we were walking to the car we saw a car driving at the beginning of the route. Immediately we jumped into the car, be what may, and hurried in its wake, on a serious slope. Suddenly we saw a big tractor (a shovel) standing in the middle and and digging and widening the road. He was not impressed by us and continued working. We and the local car considered returning, but then the tractor moved away.
We enter the car happily, turn right, pass the subterranean passage and then we discover two giant tractors building the road and preparing asphalt. In the meantime we were joined by another car and a cart with a donkdy. We didn’t understand what had happened: the tractors let us pass and in front of us there was the road descending to the wadi and going up from there to Nabi Ilias. It had been worth it.
