Afternoon

Afternoon shift: 14.00 to 18.00 (2 - 6 PM)MachsomWatchers: R.H., A.K., N.O.Others: A television team from the Arte stationWe arrived earlier because the Arte cameraman wanted to be at the checkpoint while it was still daylight. At this time of day, the flow of vehicles is very light as is the number of pedestrians passing through, the latter including many school children on their way home. But even later on there was far less traffic -- vehicles and people -- than we have been used to recently, thanks to the opening of the Surda road, a cause for rejoicing in itself, as the Palestinians confirm. At the same time, we discovered that there is gloomier side to this picture: the soldiers at the Qalandia north checkpoint now all too easily refuse to allow Palestinians without permits to pass through, proclaiming:"One can go through Surda now, it's quite simple, it only costs a few shekels," as if unaware of the hassle this is for those who live in the villages very close to Qalandia south. Travelling to these villages via Surda adds on at least another hour to the time it takes them to get home.And yet again they wanted to prevent the cameraman with us from photographing at the checkpoint. We dug in our heels over the right to photograph and arrived at a compromise whereby he would photograph only the Machsomwatch team in conversation with Palestinians. Later, an argument developed between Yuval, the deputy commander of the checkpoint, and the Arte team. Yuval charged that he had seen the cameraman filming soldiers and demanded that the film be handed over to him. The Arte team refused and we contacted Netta (Na'ama's replacement as Ronni Numa's assistant ) asking her to serve as mediator. She explained that it is true that it is forbidden to film soldiers against their will nor is one allowed to photograph what are known as "military installations", and in the case of Qalandia the entire checkpost from south to north is regarded as a "military installation". But at the same time, she did apparently convince Yuval to back-down on his demand to confiscate the suspect film. But the point of principle here has not yet been resolved. In the course of our stay at Qalandia we noted the following episodes:A youngster who moves goods around the checkpoint with a wheelbarrow was refused permission to pass on the grounds that he is taking away the livelihood of some 10 "porters" whom Faris registered the other day as permitted to work here. A Palestinian woman of 42 (the age at which people may pass without needing a permit --"tasrich" -- is still set at 50) who has an American passport but with no valid visa or residence permission , lives in A-ram and works in Ramallah and has trouble in crossing the checkpoint every day and had problems while we were there too. We did not manage to convince the soldiers to let her through. In the end, we noticed that she managed to smuggle herself through southwards.The checkpoint was closed to vehicular traffic for an hour (details follow). The first in the line of waiting cars was our friend Eman whose woman passenger had undergone surgery only a few days previously and who was due to be at Sha'arei Zedek Hospital -- she was not in a very good state. We contacted the IDF's Humanitarian Centre and after about 15-20 minutes permission was granted for the car in which she travelling to proceed. She was on her way even before the checkpoint was reopened. And now to a description of a shameful and wicked episode which repeats itself almost every day opposite the Qalandia refugee camp by the fence that has been erected along the length of the runway at the former Atarot airfield. At 16.00 hours Roni noticed a group of 8-10 youngsters from the Qalandia refugee camp starting to climb the hill opposite via a big rubbish dump in the direction of the Atarot fence. We decided to move up as close as we could and to keep an eye on what was happening. The lads got to the top and then managed to climb over the fence-- there is apparently some break in it at this point. On the southern side they started to needle (the soldiers) and throw stones at the runway. After about 5 minutes two jeeps drove up, the soldiers got out and started climbing up the slope on foot. After another 5 minutes the first shot rang out-- it was tear gas. At the same time, a third jeep arrived along the patrol road. The soldiers crossed the fence northwards and aimed their weapons in the direction of the youngsters (we watched what was going on through binoculars) and then they began to chase after them as far as the road that the youngsters had escaped to. For their part, the kids hid behind cars with the soldiers in pursuit.At 16.20 the soldiers fired into the refugee camp.At 16.30 another jeep roared up , three soldiers got out and they too fired tear gas at the youngsters.Meanwhile we noticed that an exceptionally long line of cars had built up and we realized that the checkpoint had been closed to traffic. At this point, two soldiers climbed up onto a concrete block and called out to the taxi drivers to move their vehicles away from the pick-up station immediately. COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT IN BOTH CASES. The soldiers readily acknowledged that THEY see these punishments as a means of preventing the throwing of stones (which has been going on now for several months, so clearly this is not effective!). As we were standing alongside a group of Palestinians, a soldier came over to us and asked whether we were not afraid. When we answered that we weren't, his comment was "They'll lynch you yet!" This was something the Palestinians found very hurtful: as one of them said to us: "What do they think, that we're animals!"16:40, we returned to the checkpoint which, as already noted, was still closed. We called Roni Numa's Netta to report to her on what had happened and to point out the tension there was, especially in light of the announcements that there would be an easing of the checkpoints. The IDF spokesman was also kept informed, Netta was extremely efficient. At 17:00 the checkpoint was again opened and the traffic began to flow through relatively quickly. Taxis too were allowed to return to the pick-up points. Three jeeps remained stationed on the hillside. We estimate that the entire "grandiose" operation involved some 12 to 15 soldiers!That day, the whole absurd episode ended without any injuries. But on Tuesday, in a repeat performance, a 16-year-old was killed by a bullet in the head!