Qalandiya, Sun 4.12.11, Afternoon

Translation: Ruth Fleishman

During fifty minutes we traversed the 15 meters that separate the Palestinian side of the checkpoint from the Jewish side. The checkpoint was crowded with people, but after standing for thirty minutes and nearly arriving at the turnstiles that lead to the inspection post, the lane in which we stood closed and we were forced to go to the neighboring lane and begin calculating the waiting time all over again. But our loss became our gain for there is no place like the lanes of Qalandiya checkpoint to make new acquaintances and friends.
We met Nibal, one of the two women who are at the head of the organization "Sulha" that works towards the development of a culture of co-existence between Jews, Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians:
More information can be found at the following site: http://www.sulha.com/he/index.asp
Nibal, together with a group of tens of Palestinians from cities from all around the West Bank, she was heading to a meeting with Israeli colleagues.

 Nibal lives at Kufer Akev and teaches Hebrew at a school in Shuafat- it doesn't take more than a quarter of an hour to arrive from one place to the other. According to her, every morning she arrives at Qalandiya checkpoint at 6:00 so that she won't be late for school which begins at 8:00.

In the past she would sometimes enter Jerusalem through Hizme checkpoint, this would make the journey much longer but since those with Palestinian IDs aren't permitted to pass there, it would take less time, especially during the morning when thousands of people crowd together at Qalandiya checkpoint. However, since the police stops the traffic of vehicles arriving at Jaba, each morning between 6:00-7:30, so as to alleviate the journey on road 60 for the settlers during rush hours, Nibal stopped using this alternative option. She testified that:
"At times the morning traffic jam reaches Ar-Ram" (a distance of about two kilometers).

-    A resident of Semirmis who had was injured in a frontal car accident and was escorted by her three children, was transferred from a Red Crescent ambulance to an Israeli one at the parking lot inside, next to the vehicle checkpoint