Morning

Qalandiya and A-Ram checkpoints Thursday morning, 1 Jan 2004.Macsomwatchers: Rama Y., Chava Y., Valeria S. A-Ram checkpoint:Everyone who wants to pass must stand behind a white line drawn on the ground, about 15 meters from the CP.The Palestinians stand in line and pass through, one by one. The sight is astounding. Qalandiya checkpoint:They will not allow Ahmed, the youth who sells bagels, to stand with his cart in the roofed area in his usual spot; they tell him that he needs to stands on the other side of the road.We speak with the CP commander. He listens, but is not convinced -- and tells us that those are the orders that he received. Qalandia North checkpoint :Not many people, almost no children, as today seems to be a vacation for all. One family wanted to pass the CP in order to travel to Jericho, and from there to catch a flight to Jordan; they had the airplane tickets with them, but they were not allowed to pass.The IDF volunteer who was checking documents was very rude and refused to listen to the soldier who told him that they could pass. In the end, when the commander arrived, they were allowed through.The two IDF volunteers and the two soldiers were extremely rude and spoke to the Palestinians in an unacceptable manner. We asked to speak to the commander and we complained about their manner of speaking and requested that he give exact instructions to the volunteers.Apparently the incident of the family who was not allowed to pass in the beginning was a common sort of occurence, since when we started to tell him, he thought we were talking about a case that happened yesterday.He listened and said that he appreciates our work. Surprisingly, today we got a lot of positive responses about our activity from the Palestinian side.