Qalandiya

5:00 There were not too many people and the line moved very quickly

 

But - to witness that what started as a knee jerk reaction after demos at Qalandiya - the closing of the parking lot for cars of people who have permits to work in Jerusalem - continues because the  "buiolder" who put the  cement blocks at the entrance there has not come back yet!

 

But - to witness that at 6:15  finally a couple with a sick child in father's arm could go through the humanitarian gate and that all the people behind the fence - the policeman and the policewoman and the soldiers  watch these sick, feeble, old  people with such indifference and expressionless faces is hard

 

But - to hear a man who has a 24 hour work permit but was turned away from a health clinic where he came  after his accident for a check up with the argument that his work permit allows him to go in a beeline from checkpoint to his place of work and not to a health clinic!!!! and thus he is not allowed to enter unless he has another permit which allows him to do that.

The man only lost one day of work in securing this other permit but the pain and sense of humiliation  that this man who has the same job for the last 30 years and is a warm and positive person made us feel so angry at the cruelty of the  very thing we fight against- limitation of  freedom of movement that all theses permits and lack of them represent.

 

So the fact that close to 2000 people  in about 23 minutes on average crossed the checkpoint today  was of  little importance to us today