Qalandiya, Tue 21.6.11, Morning

    
When we arrived at 6:10 a.m., one could already hear, from the parking lot, the angry noise of the men waiting in a crush within, and lined up well beyond, the three cage-like sleeves. Immediately we were told that some had been waiting since as early as 5 a.m. but the turnstiles had only begun to open at 6 or so. Then we met Judy E. and Ilil B., who confirmed what the men in line had been telling us, namely, that a woman soldier in charge of pressing the button that opens the turnstiles had literally been asleep on the job. Consequently, a large crowd had built up, and the mood was understandably very angry.  Judy and Ilil went on Anata while we made contact with the DCO and the office of the checkpoint's police commander and were told that officers were on the way to deal with the situation.

Meanwhile, the overflow from the sleeves had crowded in front of the Humanitarian Gate, although few of the men standing there appeared, on the face of it, to have the appropriate permits to enter through this gate (their attempts seemed more a matter of "nothing ventured, nothing gained," especially as there was no movement through the turnstiles). When the Humanitarian Gate opened for the first time at 6:20, everyone waiting there went through -- that is, no attempt was made to check permits at the gate itself.  These, however, were checked further on, and all who lacked a pass for the Humanitarian Gate had their permits confiscated and were sent back out to join the line in the sleeves. A number of men were distraught by the confiscation of their permits, but an Civil Administration officer assured us that these would promptly be returned to their owners -- and, indeed, promptly were, in our presence.

Thereafter, the Humanitarian Gate was opened each time a woman, student, or man with the appropriate permit reached it.  As a rule, traffic through the gate was very light today (or perhaps seemed so because there was no buildup of people waiting in beside it).

At one point we got the attention of the ranking Civil Administration officer and reported the complaints that the soldier in charge of the turnstiles before 6 a.m. had fallen asleep – in full view, we should add, of the many men waiting in line. The officer initially seemed skeptical but noted that this could be checked by looking at the recorded video from that time. When the video was checked, it turned out that the complaints were justified, and the buildup created before 6 a.m. was, at least in part, responsible for the slow, frustrating pace. The officer also spoke about ideas for improving the checkpoint and the plan for dealing with the heavy flow during the upcoming Ramadan holiday. We suggested that he might want to avail himself of the research on Queuing Theory being conducted at the Technion.

We left at 7:30, by which point the sleeves were less than half full. One man whose cell number we took at 6:10, and who told us that he had arrived at 5:40, later reported that he had exited the checkpoint at 7:20.