Qalandiya

An especially slow morning at Qalandiya.

Only 3 windows were open when we arrived at 5.10 and the lines were fairly short. But until another two windows opened at 5.25 the lines reached far into the parking lot. And this remained so until 7.00. The lines reached to the middle area between the cages and the edge of the covered area when we left at 7.15. So the administrators of the checkpoint did not manage to achieve their goal (supposedly according to the pattern of the last weeks).  That is to empty all the lines by 7.00 and definitely did not manage to shorten by even a moment the waiting period for those using the checkpoint. The exact opposite, the stream of people in the morning was very slow  and stopped completely for 10 mijutes in the lines of 3 asnd 4.  When we tried to speak to the policeman on duty  about what had caused this delay in the two lines he answered in a cynical manner that the soldiers had gone to the toilet.  The humanitarian gate was opened at 6.10 by a policewoman with a guard. The captain of the DCO who was responsible for the gate only arrived at 6.25  and continued opening so long as people collected there.

We were amazed at the patience and the quiet of those waiting  in spite of the length of the lines.