Morning

MachsomWatchers: M.M., V.S., R.Y. A-Ram checkpoint: people are passing with no delay. Qalandia checkpoint: the queue is longer of course, but no delays here either, and waiting time is no longer than 10 minutes. Children were being allowed to go to the head of the line. Four teachers who pass this checkpoint every day were detained because it was decided to check their papers. They were impatient because they were late for school, but the officer in charge said it would be “only about 5 minutes.” So what happened? Their document were held by the soldier at the observation post across the path; he had already checked them out by phone, so the teachers could have gone on their way -- except that their documents could only be returned to them by the officer, who was busy with the queue at the time, and the soldier couldn’t leave his post to give the papers to the officer. [Watcher] M.M. became furious and told me not to omit this in the report.Ten more minutes went by before the officer got freed up from the queue and returned the documents to the teachers. We heard an additional explanation about the alternate path that was scraped in the mud around part of the covered area: For reasons of security: so ”that they can’t sneak around behind us and stab us in the back”(…). Perhaps we ought to collect these various and sundry explanations, and maybe the extent of the surreal absurdity and viciousness in this will affect someone enough to open the overhead cover to its full dimensions. -- At least, that.