Qalandiya - “an attempted stabbing”
I asked whether anyone knows or has seen or heard what happened on Saturday between the checkpoint and the refugee camp, during what the media called “an attempted stabbing”. This is what I was told:
-It’s Ahmad. You know him.
-Ahmad, the guy who sells water here, sometimes coffee.
-It’s Ahmad, who’s disabled, limps, 23 years old but has a head like a child.
-Got married and the woman didn’t want him.
When I was shown a photo I recognized him, I’ve seem limping to offer water bottles to drivers stuck in the traffic jam.
I was shown a video in which security guards exit the checkpoint compound, chase Ahmad, grab him and pull him inside.
(From the video: photographed seconds before Ahmad and his catchers disappear into the checkpoint).
I was told that what happened was that Ahmad reached the entry line of the vehicle barrier, the line that everyone knows is the point from which anyone might get shot to death – and he stood and hesitated.
He turned back, took a few steps, and then turned again and returned to that line.
Perhaps he had second thoughts, and he changed his mind a second time.
One of the vendors approached him and told him not to proceed, to get back, Ahmad began to step ack and then his knife fell of the ground. This was like a signal for the armed men inside the checkpoint to come out, grab him and pull him inside.
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In Ramallah, anyone caught without a mask is fined 100 NIS, said a man coming from Ramallah. In Tel Aviv the fine is much steeper, I answered. In Tel Aviv a guy makes 300 NIS a day, my interlocutor replied. I rested my case.