Qalandiya

“It will open when we have quiet” the officer replied to one of the peddlers who asked when the parking lot will reopen.

“It will open when we have quiet” she said, stating the golden rule.

The woman who had undergone an operation in a Nablus hospital and arrived at the checkpoint in an ambulance on her way home to Gaza, and who hadn’t been allowed through, will apparently also have to wait until we have quiet.

The Erez crossing is closed and the DCL doesn’t answer said the ambulance driver who made a U-turn and drove to Ramallah.  Perhaps they’ll be willing to hospitalize the woman until we have quiet.

But many won’t return even after we have quiet.

And the cameras and searchlights installed about a month ago, which are lit day and night, blinding and harassing the residents of the refugee camp across the road – they certainly won’t be removed even after we have quiet.

Nor the hatred in the eyes of the children and youths who hurl stones at the checkpoint every evening and roll burning tires at it and return home at dusk, their bodies, clothing and souls soaked with the poisonous gas fumes – it won’t be extinguished even after we have quiet.