morning (+Anata)

Sunday morning, Jan. 4Anata-Sho'afat and QalandiaChanah A., Noa, Rachel R. We started at Anata-Sho'afat because there have beencomplaints that we never go there and the situation isbad. Indeed it was. When we arrived at about 6:30there were already over 20 detainees; most said theyhad been there since 6:00 or earlier. When wereturned later there were about 40! Some of the detainees said they had been rounded upfrom further down the road--on "their" side of theboundary, not the Jerusalem side--and brought up tothe checkpoint to have their i.d.s checked. One saidhe was brought there from the grocery store were hegoes every day to buy food for the men he works withon that street. Others said they have gone past heredaily for months on the way to work in Israel and werenot usually stopped. They said that, as we suspected,this is a new group of soldiers with new rules. Most of the soldiers were polite but wouldn't speak tous beyond saying that they were checking i.d.s Onesoldier was quite offensive and insisted we move away,even though we were not interfering. They didn'tobject to our talking to the detainees!We phoned all the numbers on the contact list but noone was answering yet at 7:30 a.m. We leftmessages--which were not responded to--and went on toQalandia. There it was quiet, very little traffic, movingfreely. One of the soldiers pointed out to us theMatak officer, a youngish man with an earring whospeaks Arabic, whose job is "to smooth things over". No one approached us to ask for help. It was so quiet at Qalandia that we returned toAnata--where many of the same men were still waitingat 9:00! A man named R. told us he owns a grocerystore in Dir ASharaf, near Shchem. He said that sinceShchem is completely closed off, there has been nobread in the village for a week!! He said he often hastrouble getting produce, and some products are held upso long on the road that they spoil before reachingthe store. We finally got answers from Dalia Bassa and Na'ama;both promised to try to find out why so many peoplewere detained for so long, and it seems that Dalia didphone, because soon the soldiers came over andpromised that the detainees would get their i.d.ssoon, and then started handing them out. By 9:30 mostof the detainees were released, and we left.