Atara, Qalandiya, Thu 17.1.08, Morning

Anata

06.30. Two lanes of traffic, each driver is checked. Many children already on their way to school. One pedestrian told us that after we would leave the Cp, cars would be delayed longer. We got the impression that traffic was heavier as time went on.

Ar-Ram

07.10 Only a few cars, each checked briefly. All pedestrians, even little schoolchildren, had to approach the border policemen one by one and some had to open their schoolbags.

Qalandiya

07.30. When we arrived a man approached us in the parking lot – a doctor at Augusta Victoria. He complained that passing through the checkpoint at Qalandiya took an hour and so he had taken to travel via Hizmeh. From what we could see, passage took about 15 minutes – which, of course, is too long in any case.

All five lanes were open until 08:00. when the prisoners’ families started to pass through two lanes. Then suddenly one of the remaining lanes closed. We were told that ‘one of the machines was not working.’ When we drew the attention of the policeman in charge, he immediately intervened and opened another lane.

By this time, most of the families had gone through (nearly 08.20), so the remaining ones were combined in one lane to free a lane for the ‘usual’ daily traffic.

There did not seem to be anyone waiting for the DCO.