Habla - a Palestinian's initiative speeds up the crossing
The opening is at 7:10.
7:00 We arrived, then came a children’s bus. It entered at 7:20.
The bus passed without being checked. A man on a bicycle arrived and on the porter there was a birthday gift for his daughter.
As we are new in Habla we now learned the function of a Palestinian who acts on behalf of the plant nurseries association.
In the past he arranged the list of the queue for entering the checking area. Today he takes care of the persons leaving Habla by vehicles.
He passes the permits to the soldiers at the gate and reads out the ID numbers. In this way he speeds up their departure. The soldiers still check the car. He speaks Hebrew (and of course Arabic). His function is defined as that of a “mediator”…as beyond this gate there are 11 plant nurseries of Palestinians they formed an association and pay him for his service.
A young man who has a work permit in the plant nurseries area but a prevention to enter Israel, approached us. Another young man who was caught without a permit in Israel, and is now prevented from entering Israel for a Year. We gave them Sylvia’s details.
We got details about the scope of work at the plant nurseries: 480 persons work on the Habla side and about the same number on the Qalqilya side.