Qalandiya, Tue 13.12.11, Morning

 As we walked through the parking lot at 6 a.m., one could already hear angry voices coming from the waiting area. The lines inside were not especially long, but the atmosphere was very tense, men were climbing above the turnstiles, and a large crowd was gathered by the Humanitarian Gate (though by the looks of things most of the men waiting there were not entitled to use the gate). Our colleagues from the EAPPI, who had been there since 4:30 a.m., said that the tension began before the change of guard at 6 a.m., because the woman soldier on duty then slept most of the time and when she did wake up, on occasion, to open the turnstiles, she let only a few people though.  Only 3 of the 5 checking stations were open at 6; the other two were opened by 6:30. After the change of guard, as well, only a few (altogether 25-30) men were allowed through the turnstiles each time, and they were opened no more often than every 10-15 minutes. Naturally the lines waiting to enter the checking stations were short.

When the Humanitarian Gate opened at 6:20, a large crowd of men pressed its way through it. We had the impression that the officers did not check the age of this first group allowed through, though later they did check the ages of the men entering the gate and confiscated the permits of those not entitled to do so, returning them some time later. A mix of new officers were present this morning: two women from the Military Police, a woman from the Blue Police, and two Civil Administration officers. The division of labor among the officers (if any) was not clear. The Humanitarian Gate was opened every 10-15 minutes.  As a result of this rate, a large crowd, including elderly men and women and parents with babies and small children, and pupils of all ages, accumulated by it and pressed forward in a crush each time it was opened. Needless to add, this cancels out the purpose and advantage of this gate. When we asked one of the Civil Administration officers to help a woman with a tiny baby make her way through the crowd up to the gate, and he told us that we managed to get her there, he would open it specially for her. With great difficulty we pushed our way through the crush, with the woman in our wake, but even when we finally arrived at the gate it was not immediately opened for her. Unfortunately we couldn’t provide the same “service” for a number of elderly women who also wanted to bypass the crowd, for fear that they would be trampled in the crush when it moved forward.

When we left at 7:30 a crowd was still waiting at the Humanitarian Gate and the lines leading into the cell-like passageways ending in the turnstiles were unusually long. A man standing at the end of one of the lines at 7:30 later told us by phone that it took him an hour and 10 minutes to traverse the checkpoint.

One quickly despairs over the fact that, after all this time, there is still no “protocol” or doctrine for managing this major checkpoint. In addition to the standing problems of not enough checking stations and the slow pace of the checks, every new officer at Qalandiya seemingly starts from scratch, managing it as he or she deems best and learning “on the job” at the expense of the people who must traverse the checkpoint. We had the impression that the officers this morning were prepared to exhibit goodwill― or at least had a desire to succeed in their task. But they failed to grasp, for example, that the purpose of the Humanitarian Gate is to spare helpless people being trampled or mashed on their way to the checking stations, and that the way to accomplish this is to prevent the buildup of a crowd by opening the gate more often.