Rihan, Shaked gate

Rihan, Shaked gate, Thursday, January 20, 2005, AMObservers: Leah R., Chedva H. (reporting); Guest: Sandra R.10:20 - 12:10Rihan checkpoint, 10:20We are greeted by Lieutenant A., who welcomes us in a polite, hearty manner. He introduces himself as the CP commander and asks us to come to him, and to him only, with any request or question.It looks like that due to the holiday, Id al-Adha, traffic of both vehicles and pedestrians is quite sparse.One of the Palestinians tells us happily, in good Hebrew, that everything is fine, there are no delays. They came for a family reunion, since their family is scattered among the Palestinian villages on both sides of the fence.Shaked gate, 11:50We drove to Shaked to observe the situation over there. We saw, by the gate, a few women with children who were waiting for the gate to open.We walked to the nearby military post. Leah approached a soldier who identified himself as the post commander, promising, in a most polite way, that in a few minutes he would open the gate.We waited more than a few minutes and went back to the post to find out the reason for the delay. The post commander was no longer there, and the one standing there at first refused to talk to us, saying he didn't know what we were talking about. Nonetheless his peers did promise to open the gate "in a short while." We waited a little longer, and that "short while" never came. We reported the situation to the MW afternoon shift and drove off.