Qalandiya, Mon 27.4.09, Morning

Arrived 6:45 to find hundreds of people milling around and all the windows closed. Closure midnight the night before - a full 24 hours before Erev Yom Hazicaron (Remembrance Day). The Palestinians we spoke to all said that they had not been informed the day before when they had been at the checkpoint and there were no notices anywhere to announce the fact. Even if it had been announced on the radio and in the newspapers (and some of the workers leave home at 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning) it would have been decent to have put up signs the previous day.
 
The humanitarian gate was opened to let schoolchildren, teachers and the sick with blue I.Ds through. But there were others who did not fall into the specified categories and were turned back - parents who were supposed to accompany their childrens' outing were not allowed even though their children and their teachers were waiting for them on the other side; a cook of 30 years at an orphanage in East Jerusalem couldn't get through to prepare the food for the children: a man who had a court case for that day in Jerusalem etc.
 
Again an example of the total lack of respect and disregard for people and their time thus increasing the sense of disdain and hatred among the people we continue to control.