Al Jib (Givat Zeev), Qalandiya, Sun 4.9.11, Afternoon

Translated by Ruth Fleishman

Qalandiya:
The relics from the Fridays of the Ramadan months were still detectable. Cement blocks were scattered on the roads, narrowing the lanes and along the separation wall was another ,paralle,l separation wall (shorter than the first) with an open gate at the center, "the revolving door" the soldiers called it, "the gate of the rejected" was how we call it (Ruti Barkay coined the phrase).
Through it they banished the women who did not comply with the age criterion. The pictures of Moatassem Adwan and Ali Khalifa, who were murdered at the refugee camp, were still hanging for the separation wall and fences.

Al Jib checkpoint:
"The DCO should check whether he isn't 'refused passage'- and I'll cross!", the checkpoint commander notified his supervisors on the radio link in regards to a dying man who was being transferred to Mukased hospital.
In addition the commander read out loud the man's medical chart. After all, people who have no rights don't have a medical confidentiality either. The Palestinians inside and around the checkpoint, the numerous soldiers and us, heard all the details. We heard that the man was unconscious, that he had cancer and that he had a wide range of additional illnesses.
Luckily for the Palestinian the DCO answered that the man was "clean". Otherwise, perhaps once again an unconscious person with only hours to live (the ambulance driver whispered to us), would rise from his death bed and endanger the country.  

During that hour in the day the laborers make their way home after working in the surrounding settlement. Many stopped to tell us that the checkpoint commander, a BP officer who arrives there once in every two or three weeks, doesn't allow the residents of the nearby villages, who work in Jerusalem, to cross this checkpoint when heading back, he sends them to Qalandiya or Zaitim.
This trip not only takes them a long time but is also very costly.