Afternoon

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Dec-30-2003
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A-Ram and Qalandiya checkpoints and the Palestinians' route to Abu Dis,TUE PM, 30 Dec 2003MachsomWatch Observers: Ronni H., Nora O., Dvorah G (reporting) The Military Police unit that has just assumed responsibility for Qalandiya checkpoint seems for the moment to be keeping the atmosphere calm. There were no hold-ups at A-Ram or Qalandiya, people and vehicles moved quietly and quickly through the checkpoint and we saw no detaineesinfo-icon. A taxi driver, serving as his friend's intermediary, told the all too usual and regrettable story of a confiscated ID that had mysteriously and apparently irretrievably gone missing.More men joined us at the southern end of the checkpoint; all had the same complaint: their Palestinian Authority IDs had been confiscated and when they arrived at the checkpoint to reclaim them as requested, on a certain day, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, they were told to return at 9 in the evening, and then, next day, and so on, until even the soldiers admitted that the documents had disappeared. So what happens then? "We have to travel to Ramallah, and swear on the Koran that the ID has been lost. Then it may take a month before we have the necessary papers to go to A-Ram and get new documents, and it costs, too. NIS400, sometimes more, sometimes less." And in between, the fear of being stopped, of having no way to prove that you exist. We approach the officer in charge, Lt. (?segen? - two bars on his shoulder tab) Uriel. He hands over the checking of pedestrians and comes to talk to us.He apparently agrees that IDs should indeed not be confiscated, only held for a reasonable time (a matter of not more than three hours) while the owners' details are checked. Things will be different with his unit in command.N. is allowed to watch as a soldier checks the box where confiscated IDs are temporarily held. No one is surprised when those we have been asked to find do not turn up.The Palestinians who sought our help have gone by the time we return to the southern end. They know they will have to reconcile themselves to yet another "lost" ID. Although senior army officials have claimed that "lost" IDs are a matter of "individual" mishaps, we believe otherwise. The consistent "losses" bear all the signs of deliberate harassment. Since this is a quiet shift, we decide to take a ride with "A.", known to MachsomWatchers for about two years now, so that we can appreciate just what a Palestinian has to put up with in travelling to work or study. "A." drives his taxi-van regularly on the Abu Dis or Bethlehem routes and confirms what others told us last week and repeated today : Border Police consistently operate "on-the-spot checkpoint" roadblocks between Mishor Adumim and Ma'aleh Adumim and make life close to impossible for Palestinians using this road at peak hours-- and especially between 06:00 - 09:00 AM. Students are prevented from getting to classes on time, workers turn up woefully late.According to "A.",. it cannot be security that motivates the BPs, because "there are no real checks after 9 o'clock and any would-be terrorist would certainly know that! If a student wants to make it to class on time , he or she had better leave home before six AM, before they start to check!" A. drives fast along the winding scenic route as it grows ever darker, but even as we pass Hizme, only minutes out of A-Ram, he begins to point out the places where the BP and blue-uniformed [Israeli] police, too, lie in wait.The blue police are very quick to spot the passenger not wearing a seat belt, the mother holding an infant in her arms instead of it being strapped into a babyinfo-icon-seat. The fines are quite heavy. But at least the police check is quick. The BP inspection is altogether a different matter:long lines of cars inch only painfully slowly forward. The one-way trip A-Ram to Abu Dis, which should take about 20 to 25 minutes, often lasts a tense hour or two -- the NIS7 fare can scarcely be profitable in such circumstances. And add to all this the appalling state of the roads as we get nearer to Azariya and Abu Dis. Here we see the new separation wall in all its horror, towering eight metres of gray concrete menacingly high into the night sky, marching up and down the hillsides, in stark contrast to the graceful line of the El-Quds University campus buildings. In the town proper, the lights are on in the shops and there is a sense of liveliness, as there is too in A-Ram. But for all that, Ali, another taxi driver, who plies the Qalandiya - Ramallah route, complains that there are only very few customers, and as we pull back into Qalandiya from Abu Dis, there is the same long line of yellow taxi-vans as there has been since 15:15 this afternoon, their drivers plaintively calling out their destinations as they compete for the all-too-small clientele. Life under occupation is tough.