Morning

At E-Ram, pedestrians passed through quickly. At Qalandya going north, there no longer seems to be any check. As we approached, a man complained to us that young schoolchildren were being delayed. We found a number of them trying to persuade the soldiers to let them pass on the outside of the "cage". Either as a result of our questions - or because the commander realized that this was attracting an uncontrollable number of both children and adults - a separate queue for schoolchildren was formed inside, so that they could get through quickly to their buses.There was a street cleaner sweeping litter! We later learned that some important person (no one knew who) was due to arrive at 12 o'clock. In connection with this planned visit, we later saw Border Police ordering the owner of a stall at the south end of the checkpoint to close it and remove his car. They wouldn't tell us why, but presumably these were safety precautions.The motor traffic was horrific. We timed a car that took 20 minutes to do 200 meters. The border fence is being built rapidly (by workers from Hebron). As we walked along it, a group of soldiers rushed up and tried to chase us away as they were on a "mission". It turned out that they were on the lookout for people who were avoiding the roadblock and in the few minutes we were there, gradually caught individual "infiltrators" - 6 men and women, whom they led back through the fields back to north of the checkpoint.A physiotherapist who lives in Ramallah but works in a Jericho hospital wasn't allowed through. Though he doesn't have the right pass, he says that he comes daily but to-day's soldiers didn't know him. Y made a phone call to Beth El. When we left, a reply was expected to reach the officer in charge. It was already late and we ourselves couldn't wait any longer