Qalandiya, Sun 1.1.12, Afternoon

Translating: Ruth Fleishman

A cab driver told us that the regulations on the passage of children had become stricter, that often the soldiers at the inspection post demand that when a child is escorted by his parents, in addition to the presentation of a Kushan (=birth certificate) and the inscription of his name in the parents' ID, the child must also be carrying his own Tasrih.
The parents make their way to the Palestinian DCO or Israeli DCL, wait in line for hours and then are told that children aren't granted a Tasrih because it is enough that their name be listed in their parent's ID. On returning to the checkpoint they find the soldiers unwilling to budge. They refuse to accept the parents' testimony or make inquiries with the DCL. The parents have no choice but to try their luck in other checkpoints, where such regulations aren't implemented, or at least not for the time being. The narrator witnessed an incident in which after having a confrontation with the soldiers, a man who was escorted by his son had a tantrum, he ripped his permit to shreds and threw them on them grown, he took his son's hand and left the site in rage.

"Tell them, tell them about me…", a person who had approached us said to the man we were talking to. He told us that a few days earlier he was taken from his house to the Moskobia, (=the Russian Compound) they accused him of being an illegal alien in his own home. The 45 year old man, who is a resident of the occupied territories and is married to a woman from Jerusalem, was held in custody for three days.
"Did they beat you?"—"Well, obviously…" he replied. After three days in custody he was brought before a judge that rebuked the Israeli Prison Service: "What are you doing, bringing me such an old man?"
The man was released and transferred to the territories of the Palestinian authority through Beit-Sira checkpoint (near Modi'in), but he has a rented room in Ar-Ram.
 
A-S also told us his story, which resembles that of many others from his nation:
That most of the Palestinians find themselves trapped between the restrictions that narrow down their freedom and rights, imposed on them by the Israeli system, and the corruption of the Palestinian authorities. He said that they, the big boys in the Muqata, take everything for themselves and don't leave means for providing for the majority of their people.
A-S, who up until the beginning of the Intifada made a good living for his family of ten members, who had worked for ten years as a crane operator at Givat Olga and as a truck driver, who had transported merchandise throughout the Israeli state, and who at times, when transporting merchandise to Ramat Hagolan would earn over a thousand shekels a day, is today, like the rest of his family, on the verge of starvation. That he is entrapped inside Palestine, that politics had turned him from a productive man to an endlessly wondering pauper, living from hand to mouth off occasional peddling.
"And how is it today?" he summed up, "every year it gets worse. I've got eight kids who want to eat. What can I do? Should I steal?- they buried us but we are alive".  

At the inspection post inside, the female soldier standing beside the soldier checking the IDs, was the one in charge of pressing the button that turns on the conveyer belt of the scanner, but for several minutes she was busy combing her hear with her fingers.
The people standing in front of those two were entrapped inside the inspection area, they waited, and waited and continued to wait. "One second"- yelled/ordered the soldier examining his college's activity with excitement. The people waiting outside, where the line was growing longer, also waited patiently for the hands of the soldier to be free and her finger proceed to press the button operating the mechanism.