Qalandiya - sick Ghazans waiting for hours to get home
Two medical patient-designated transport vehicles were waiting at the platform for their passengers to Gaza.
One of the drivers said to me:
-Do you know that there are patients who have been waiting since morning inside there, to be allowed to go home?
-Do you know what happens with those who arrive late, after you’ve left?
-Surely they are allowed to take a taxi, only it costs them more.
-Well, no.
When the signal was given and the gate opened, people exited in a crowded group, loaded with parcels, people in a slow hurry. Some of them were limping, some had a plastic cup covering one of their eyes and telling the wordless story of eye surgery.
Last out was a scrawny elderly lady whose operated eyes were no help, who hesitated at every step, afraid to trip among the puddles and stones, and glad to have my hand hold hers and lead her securely to the vehicle.
***
In the refugee camp a friend said that when the news of the disappearance of child Kaes Abu Ramila arrived, he too hurried to join the searchers. They were hundreds, perhaps thousands who came to Beit Hanina.
All of them were echoing the memory of Mohammad Abu Khdeir’s tragedy.
The human river searched every street, combed every trail. People who believed that Jews had kidnapped the child proceeded towards settler-colony Neve Yaacov to look for him there. But the junction was blocked by the police. “They thought the police knows something and is not telling, otherwise why close off only this junction and leave the Pisgat Ze’ev (another settler-colony) open?”
They searched all night. In the morning the horrific news came – the child was found dead in a hole in the ground filled with rainwater, within the Jerusalem municipal jurisdiction. A hole without any fence around it.
“What do they care, the officials in the municipality, if Arabs drown and die?” my friend half asked, half stated.
On a tin partition towering over the exit from the checkpoint a warning sign in Hebrew only has been posted. I don’t know whether it is more ridiculous or disgusting or irritating…
“Warning! No entry, construction site!
Tubul 02-5656100”