Qalandiya, Wed 6.5.09, Afternoon

Natanya translating

16.15 - Qalandiya. The south parking lot: The loudspeaker on the southern tower gives out command in Arabic to those underneath.

16.25 - No pressure. Sleeves 2 and 3. 15-20 people in front of each. People creep into the closed cages looking for the one that is open.

16.30 - About 30 people in front of the open cage.

16.50 - About 50 people wait in front of the open cage.

17.10 - About 70 people wait in front of the only cage. 2 sleeves are open.

Approximately at 16.30 a resident of Idhna gives us the following description.

At about 11 am he arrived at the checkpoint with two people. He had wanted to pay a large sum at the Post office which was a guarantee to free a prisoner at "Ofer". The man who spoke to us was not allowed to pass. Two others got permission to go through and paid the sum. And then "disappeared". Their telephones were closed. The man asked us to get the receipt from the Post Office so as to free the man at Ofer today.

We phoned the Operations Room and the DCO 2-3 times. We did not really know how to help him. 3 phone calls to the humanitarian centre, where we got the same response. The line to the commander was busy.

We could not find the commander of that day at the checkpoint. We also turned to Hanna B. The operations room and the DCO said that the man who had gone to the post was blacklisted. In the meantime the man who had approached us left. We have his cell phone number.

17.30 - The cars streamed through.

17.35 - A Palestinian ambulance arrives and is detained for 14 minutes. The ambulance from east Jerusalem is already waiting in the car park. A woman soldier and a man guarding her deal with the passage. We saw a woman, evidently after an operation and a boy. Because we could not see well we did not see who was put into the ambulance.

17.52 - The ambulances leave.

18.00 - The red shed is empty.

A man shows us a permit that he has to go through for one day to attend a funeral. All the details and the limitations seemed to us to be correct but he had not been allowed to go through. He said he had been a prisoner in the past and that he had given up and would not try to get through again. We have a copy of the permit which had not been honoured.

18.05 - Sleeve number 5 was opened for those with blue IDs. Next to the window stood a young mother with a pram and two bags. A white blanket and a baby in her arms. When she was asked for the second time to fold the pram (and this when the baby was in her arms) and to go again through the x-ray machine we told the soldier that the pram had already been checked. We have no words to describe the tone and the humiliating attitude with which the soldier answered us. A representative of the army at the international border passage (welcome to those coming to Qalandiya). We stayed at the side but the line was held up because of us. We went to another sleeve. The young mother again passed the pram through the x-ray machine. The humanitarian gate was opened for her. The second sleeve and the last she had to push through together with the folded pram, the bags and the baby. There no one opened the humanitarian gate for her. She said, "I live in America. This is my first time here. I don't know how to behave here".

Unfortunately, at this checkpoint there are quite a few people who don't know how to behave and there is no one there to keep an eye on them and demand decent behaviour.

In the end we phoned the man with the guarantee: the prisoner had been freed and the receipt too.