'Azzun 'Atma, Habla
05.30 Azzun Atma.We left Ramat Hasharon in pouring rain and here it was still dry. At the checkpoint about 100 people and this remains constant. We were told by one of the people that the situation had worsened since the building of the wall on the other side of the village. Now people coming to the checkpoint from outside the village are checked twice, once at the entrance to the village from the Palestinian side and the other at the exit to their work in Israel.
3 young men come from outside the checkpoint and tell us that they passed the checkpoint with permits and on the way to their lands the police stopped them and took away their IDS and permits and told them to wait at the checkpoint until they were returned. Two other workers were caught when they went through a opening in the fence and their IDs taken away and they were now waiting in the village.
The commander of the checkpoint a sergeant demanded that we leave the area of the checkpoint. We refused and he threatened to call the police. Truly after a while a police car arrived and he spoke to the police who then went on their way.
07.00 Habla gateThe gate is being opened. Already a line of 80 people wait. Two buses arrive with children. The trucks are checked very slowly and the people in the line begin to quarrel. The woman soldier who is in charge shouts and threatens to stop the checking and so she does. We phoned the DCO at Qalqiliya and to the humanitarian checkpoint and after a while the checking was renewed. It seems that more and more people come to the checkpoint and the checking itself goes on at the same pace.