'Anata-Shu'afat, Thu 8.3.12, Afternoon

14:30 - 17:00 Anata checkpoint

We parked in the parking lot close to the pedestrian crossing of the checkpoint and walked through the broad path that is at least three times as wide as the narrow paths of the Qalandiya checkpoint. A man who walked beside us stopped to talk to us. He  lives for many years in the Shuafat refugee camp, has a blue ID card but no work. He told us he had been in trouble many times and was wounded as a result of a quarrel with his boss in the Machane Yehuda market. He was hospitalized for a while but never got any money from the social security. He thinks the new checkpoint has put some order in the area, we will see later that not everybody shares this view.

We reached the Carousel and entered the marker area of Anata. The building going on around there is unbelievable; dozens of high rising houses built with hardly any space between them. It seems that they are built without any inspection and there is definitely no suitable infrastructure. It reminded us very much of what we saw not long ago in Kufr Akeb. In part the buildings are already inhabited and we understand the price of the apartments is much cheaper than that in the neighboring Beit Hanina. Most of the people who buy these apartments have lived for the past few years under very crowded conditions in the old city. We don't completely understand what will happen to these people, who possess blue ID cards and supposedly belong to Israel, when the new wall will be completed.

All of a sudden some stones were aimed at us; the first one was small and fell a few meters from us, the second was large and almost reached the feet of one of us. We decided to leave.

We returned to the entrance of the neighborhood and went to talk to the grocery owner at the corner. In his mind the situation has become worse since the new checkpoint had been opened. In the past he could go from his shop to his home in Ras Hamis by car. Now he has to go via the CP which takes him too long and he prefers to walk. He told us that in 1966 his family was forced by the Hussein regime to the refugee camp of Shuafat, from there they moved to Ras Hamis.  He has seven children, the youngest being 15. Three of his children live with their families in the new buildings by the CP. He says the conditions there are very bad; it is terrible crowded and there is no room for cars to go through, not to talk of parking. A day ago, because an army car was broken into, the CP was closed for two hours and the turmoil was unbelievable.