Afternoon

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Feb-11-2003
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15:00 E-Ram very quiet. A soldier crosses the street to stop a Palestinian young man walking south - takes his passport and they cross to the "office" where the youth waits - he is hard-of-hearing or deaf (one hearing aid we could see). After several minutes he's turned back. The border policeman told us that he has no visa. 16:10 From the hill overlooking Qalandya checkpoint, we can see more private cars than usual parked towards Jaba, no taxis and very few transits. People in holiday clothes. Two long lines of people coming in to the checkpoint from the north - it seems waiting time is relatively short. A long line of vehicles waiting to come south.We are told there is a two hour wait for cars. Also, from 6:00 to 10:00 this morning the checkpoint was closed. At the south entrance to the checkpoint there's a new sign post in Arabic stating that "whoever leaves for Ramallah will not be permitted to return to Jerusalem without a permit.".16:15 At the north part of the checkpoint: almost all people waiting in line have blue ID cards and most are let through. 16:30 The line is stopped and the checking stops because someone argued with the soldier and the rest were "punished". 5 minutes later they were checked again and let through. 16:50 A skirmish broke out at the cars' line - several drivers who'd been waiting for hours lost their temper, more people intervened. Roni was there and says some motorcyclists had overtaken the cars and were told to go back by the soldiers. The soldiers stopped letting anyone through. That's when the skirmish broke out. During the commotion the soldiers started to move towards the quarreling crowd and one of them unlatched his rifle. Roni shouted "don't shoot" and that sound immediately stopped the skirmish.17:20 An ambulance (Red Crescent 6-3847-90) came south - a man holding a babyinfo-icon inside - they were let through right away.17:35 A second ambulance ICU (603870-90) came from the direction of Tora-Bora and was let through to the north in Kalandia immediately.