Sansana, Sun 14.2.10, Morning
Translation: Bracha B.A.
Sansana-Meitar Crossing
We arrived at the crossing at 05:20 AM. People asked us to do something about the Sunday congestions at the crossing. It appears that people are still traumatized by the incident in which a person who was taken to the hospital from the crowded line last week then died. Various reports reach us while we were there about how many people were injured in that incident.
From observing matters at the entrance it appears that things are going very slowly and therefore there is a lot of congestion and a long line. We asked to speak with Shlomi, the CP's manager in chief. Instead, we got the person in charge of security come out to us and he claimed that about 250 people go through every ten minutes. This figure appears to be exaggerated. We got Shlomi's phone number from him and went on, to examine conditions at the exit. At first we counted 30 people coming out every ten minutes. The person in charge of security came out and saw that we were still there and went back in. Miraculously things began to move faster…! There were not 250 people coming out every ten minutes, but about 60 or 70. We felt that there was definitely a good reason for our being there. The Palestinians asked us to do something about the bad situation. There is no reason for people to have to line up for over an hour!! Most people coming out of the checkpoint are angry and this can lead to no good.
We agreed that Anat would speak to Shlomi to see how things might be improved. We suggest that we observe this checkpoint at least once a week to see what is going on.
As of February 19th we have still not managed to contact Shlomi. Despite his promises he has still not returned our phone call.