Qalandiya, Wed 27.1.10, Afternoon

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Place: 
Observers: 
Tamar B., Yvonne M., Daniela, Y. (all took part in preparing the report)
Jan-27-2010
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Afternoon

15:15 At the entrance before the CP in the route for cars going north, we saw a new little house with 'Police' written on it in Hebrew and in English. Border Patrol soldiers placed a jeep there with its side facing the road. They are inspecting various permits, documents of the cars, and so forth. Because of this, there are long queues on the A-Ram road and on Road 443. There are tremendous traffic jams in the direction of Jerusalem.

Pedestrian Crossing in the Direction of Jerusalem

From the sign posted by the community administration: Employment Service open only one day a week for a few hours.

Passage of cars going south: An ambulance of the Red Crescent arrives to take a patient to Nablus. It stands in the path that is usually for cars and waits for ten minutes. The ambulance does not have right of way. They transfer the patient from ambulance to ambulance on a stretcher in the cold. Four security guards with rifles at the ready are overseeing the transfer. A soldier reads the medical document.

16:20 Two sleeves are open. About 80 people are standing. A student from Bir-Zet tells us that he has been detained in queues for hours. A soldier put his feet on the table and spoke with him 'through' his feet. "In Jordan I get a bit of respect but here it's my home." Once he was taken to an interior room and they asked him: "Do you want to work with us? Do you know anybody from the Hamas?"

It takes 20 minutes to go through. Route 2 is closed. When we asked why, Palestinians told us that the woman soldier is inspecting the electricity, that is to say, the machine that keeps whistling. And indeed, wonder of wonders, we heard a whistle from the magnometer even though nobody went through. Five women students from Bir Zet went through with a blue ID and the machine whistled. They took off some clothes and remained dressed in light clothes (if there is a need to undress because of some security suspicion, it is appropriate to heat the place.) There were some who took off their belts in advance and even their shoes and the machine still whistled. The girls said: 'We laugh it off. If we won't laugh that will cause us trouble." The girls think that the women soldiers are causing the whistling.

We, on the other hand, went through with a lot of metal on us, like the Children of Israel in the Red Sea, and there was no whistling whatsoever. A technological wonder, does the machine identify Jews by their smell?

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