Qalandiya

Short and easy morning

Four inspection booths were operating and there were lines in three out of four enclosures when we arrived at the Kalandia checkpoint at 5:05. The fifth booth opened at 5:12 and the soldier in the aquarium opened the turnstiles at the end of the enclosures frequently, so there wasn't a build-up of long lines.  Once in a while the rest of the turnstiles were opened for new arrivals and the flow was pretty constant.

The DCO soldier arrived at 6:00, but didn't open the Humanitarian gate because the arrivals went straight into the empty enclosures.  Nevertheless, he remained there, maybe to deal with the groups of travelers who start to arrive at 8:00.  According to the type of trash at the checkpoint, one can surmise that groups of travelers go through daily).  After 10 minutes, when we saw no problem with long lines and that people continued to enter straight into the inspection area, we left at 6;15.

According to this situation - in 2 successive shifts - we understand that the program to bring the workers from the Atarot industrial zone in buses through the vehicles checkpoint had begun.  Next time, we will check this by a lookout over the vehicles checkpoint and also by talking with the DCO soldier or guards there.

Today, 7 out of the 10 lights in the waiting area were lit (a great improvement, but not clear why they couldn't have repaired all of them).