Afternoon

Qalandya:We were on the way to Surda (determined not to linger at Qalandya), but there came a call from Mohammed, a transit driver who had been caught without his ID and had been detained. This was just another chapter in an ongoing ordeal. A week ago while Mohammed was driving with 8 passengers, an army vehicle with a loud siren was storming behind, so he 'hopped' to the side of the road. Somehow this upset the inhabitants of the vehicle; they stopped, and demanded Mohammed's ID, but as he had already given his ID in a past incident never to have received it back he handed over his Jordanian passport instead; whereupon the soldier ordered him to followand roared away. Mohammed didn't follow. He had 8 passengers, for one, and he may have heard of the beatings known to have happened to those who followed in past incidents. Being a real survivor he wrote down the hour and the army vehicle's plate number, which he gave us when we arrived. We called the army, and were happy to learn that Naama, who is replacing Assaf as Roni Numa's assistant, is a humane and helpful human being. She immediately delved into the task of locating that army vehicle. She asked for Mohammed's phone number. Unfortunately she learned that thesoldier had passed on the passport to another Palestinian, without passing it through the system, and it seemed as if it got lost. Mohammed asked whether the army could write a formal letter admitting to what had happened, so he would be able to take it with him to apply for a new passport. He explained that it was terribly difficult to issue a new passport, that the Jordanians are very suspicious, they would assume he is lying, had sold it, etc. To our amazement, Naama thought this was a great idea, and arranged it! We were going to continued to Surda when Mohammed called us again: He had been caught without his passport. Naama was again willing to help. She called and was told that he would be released soon. When we arrived in Qalandya we saw him caged in the metal box in the checkpoint, his arm waving from within. The soldiers were horrid and indifferent. Finally, with Naama's help, the officer Zeev allowed him to go. Mohammed asked for his keys and papers; his key (pulled out of the girlsoldier's pocket) was returned, broken (this requires quite a lot of force, as it was bent and partly chopped off). Zeev said that the border police did it, but Mohammed picked up the chopped-off piece from the ground just in front of where the soldiers were sitting. This started a new round of lies.... The papers were not found (Mohammed was sure they were in her pocket too, but she denied it) and Zeev said they were in a border police's pocket, who is now in Ramalla, and that Mohammed should return at 7 or 8 for them. Needless to say, when Mohammed went back at 7 and again at 8 and finally spoke to Zeev he was answered rudely, toldthat he (Zeev) doesn't know or care where his papers are, and to just shove off. Mohammed wants to file a complaint against them. That was Qalandya South. When we finally crossed to the North, in a hurry because Ali all this time was waiting to take us to Surda, we were told that someone is in the metal box on the north side, after having been beaten by the soldiers. He was on his way to the university, to take an important test in Engineering. The soldiers said quite openly that they were not going to release him because (according to them) he had hit a soldier. When we said that that we had heard the contrary, that they had hit him, they answered that he had hit first. The passersby, however, said that thecheckpoint had been closed for a very long time with no apparent reason,so finally this student had come up to the soldiers demanding an explanation, and this was answered with blows and the detention. We passed his cellphone number to the Moked, and later in Surda we were informed that they had managed to release the guy. However, he probably missed his test.