Qalandiya - despite illness and urgent treatment regulations prevail.
“See, for you are not alone”
An ambulance coming from the Erez Crossing (to the Gaza Strip) was parked at the site designated for the back-to-back procedure and waited for its counterpart from the West Bank. Inside waited “a very very sick man”, according to the driver. “He is going to Nablus for an open heart surgery”. But when the Nablus ambulance arrived, no one hurried to transfer the patient for here, a place controlled by guns, preference and priority are given to procedures and not the patient’s condition.
First one had to be certain that the man is up to all the criteria and all his documents are in order.
One could only imagine the mental and physical prices paid for the not-at-all obvious privilege of receiving an exit permit from the Gaza Strip – where, because of the many years of siege and limitations there is neither the capability nor the equipment needed for his treatment.
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If the patient is inspected when exiting the Strip, why is he subjected to the same inspections here? I asked the girl-soldier who supervised the procedures by the book.
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I don’t understand what you’re asking, was her answer.
I gave in. I didn’t insist.
At the same time, an ambulance from the West Bank arrived at the same site and waited and waited.
When the ambulance arrived from Jerusalem, when Wassim of the Red Crescent understood the patient’s condition, he wouldn’t stop to chat as usual, and only muttered to me: “He must get to his dialysis treatment urgently”. That didn’t happen, despite illness priorities and urgent treatment.
Many hands raised the man and carried him from one stretcher to another, many hands carried his stretcher from one ambulance to another for they had to be changed – stretchers, ambulances, even the oxygen tank that keeps the man alive had to be chanced.
Only when inspections and stretcher and ambulance changes were over and doors closed, the ambulance got on its way to the Augusta Victoria Hospital, sirens blaring.
**
In front of the refugee camp I noticed a child I hadn’t met before, straggling behind the vender children. The child walked along, as if seeking something that doesn’t exist.
I approached him and discovered a child hungering for attention, glad to have someone to talk with, and did not cringe at the hand held out to stroke his hair and speak softly.
His looks suggested he was a battered child, but an acquaintance explained that his lips were the victims of a virus.
I looked at him and at all the other children and a line from Avot Yeshurun’s poem: “See for you are not alone”.
Qalandiya Checkpoint / Atarot Pass (Jerusalem)
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Click here to watch a video from Qalandiya checkpoint up to mid 2019 Three kilometers south of Ramallah, in the heart of Palestinian population. Integrates into "Jerusalem Envelope" as part of Wall that separates between northern suburbs that were annexed to Jerusalem in 1967: Kafr Aqab, Semiramis and Qalandiya, and the villages of Ar-Ram and Bir Nabala, also north of Jerusalem, and the city itself. Some residents of Kafr Aqab, Semiramis and Qalandiya have Jerusalem ID cards. A terminal operated by Israel Police has functioned since early 2006. As of August 2006, northbound pedestrians are not checked. Southbound Palestinians must carry Jerusalem IDs; holders of Palestinian Authority IDs cannot pass without special permits. Vehicular traffic from Ramallah to other West Bank areas runs to the north of Qalandiya. In February 2019, the new facility of the checkpoint was inaugurated aiming to make it like a "border crossing". The bars and barbed wire fences were replaced with walls of perforated metal panels. The check is now performed at multiple stations for face recognition and the transfer of an e-card. The rate of passage has improved and its density has generally decreased, but lack of manpower and malfunctions cause periods of stress. The development and paving of the roads has not yet been completed, the traffic of cars and pedestrians is dangerous, and t the entire vicinity of the checkpoint is filthy. In 2020 a huge pedestrian bridge was built over the vehicle crossing with severe mobility restrictions (steep stairs, long and winding route). The pedestrian access from public transport to the checkpoint from the north (Ramallah direction) is unclear, and there have been cases of people, especially people with disabilities, who accidentally reached the vehicle crossing and were shot by the soldiers at the checkpoint. In the summer of 2021, work began on a new, sunken entrance road from Qalandiya that will lead directly to Road 443 towards Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. At the same time, the runways of the old Atarot airport were demolished and infrastructure was prepared for a large bus terminal. (updated October 2021)
Tamar FleishmanFeb-27-2026Qalandiya: On the way to prayer
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