morning

QALQILIYA,Saturday morning, 3 January, 2004 Observers: Rahel, Anat, Dina, Yasmin and a mail guest In general: A very long line and very angry Palestinians.When we arrived at the checkpoint at about 09:00 there were some 100 people waiting on line. No one under 40 was being allowed through because there was a demonstration going on in Qalqiliya and the army did not want them to join it. The Palestinians had been told that this would be the case until 12:00 midday. We looked for the checkpoint commander, but he was not on hand. The soldier in effective charge was Segen Mishne (??) Yoav G.. At around 10:00, an officer (Rav Seren?) Halabi, arrived from the DCO and began checking people through very slowly. At this point the age below which people were allowed through was dropped from 40 to 25. But the line was still very long. We contacted the DCO and they promised to attend to the matter. At about 10:30 the army began letting more people through -- this was after Giladi had apparently received instructions by phone. As a result, almost everyone still in the line by then was allowed to pass. Concurrently, quite a line of vehicles (about 20) had built up. While we were there a family of Israel Arabs from Tira arrived ( man, woman and three children). They wanted to go to Qalqiliya for the funeral of a member of their family. One of the soldiers refused them permission to pass and ordered them away from the checkpoint. Following our intervention, they were allowed to go through the checkpoint and were given leave to stay-- for two hours only! Their IDs were taken away as a surety for their return in the specified time. It should be stressed that Giladi, the officer in effective control, behaved very rudely and pushed the Palestinians around roughly. When we protested to him about this, he cursed us and pushed us too. While we were at the checkpoint we met a group of Belgian Jews, members of an international humanitarian organization.