Morning

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Feb-15-2003
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Qalandya 8:30-10:30 a.m. In spite of a very bad weather, a huge number of people were moving in each direction. People were coming with transits and mainly with yellow taxis with green, Palestinian plates from far away after the end of 4-days-Id El-Adha. Passage northbound was very quick without any inspections. The line of pedestrians going southbound was very long and slow. 4 teachers were prevented from going to schools on the ground that their Palestinian-Authority- issued certificates are false and they didn't project teachers' images (lack of books and pens). This remind questioning doctors if they really know medicine. We tried to interfere –an officer in charge claimed that there are some certificates with certain stamps which are proper and other kind of stamps unacceptable. Finally, one out of 4 teachers passed. Students who had blue ID’s decided not to go to schools when they saw that teachers could not pass. In Tora Bora young people passed through the heavy mud. We spoke with a big crowd of women students who went to Abu Dis University. Yellow taxis with Palestinian numbers were randomly stopped at the South end of Kalandia and forced to go to Ramalla. This chasing was performed about every 15 min and about one of 10 taxis was caught and it caused a lot of tension. It was clear that our presence restrained the soldiers' behavior, and prompted Palestinians to resist this harassment. It was clear that soldiers will not restrain themselves for a long time and we could not stay there forever.