Qalandiya

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Aug-17-2003
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Ar-Ram, 16:15. A flow of pedestrian
traffic, although some are turned back. M,, who was in charge, was
quite patient, reading the various papers that people showed him
and attempting to understand what they were talking about. One
detained man had been refused passage, and was caught trying to
bypass. He was a worker from Hebron who had had some work in
Al-Bireh and was trying to get home without a permit. The soldiers
said he will get water and even food if he wants, but they wanted
to "teach him a lesson". Another man had been stopped for
driving a car without the proper papers and he had been ordered to
go to the checkpoint in order to be arrested (eventually,
apparently, he was). The soldiers didn't know what to do with him
and called all around. He was distressed, saying that he had left
his young wife with a three days old babyinfo-icon. No border police on the
back road.

Qalandya. There is a new tin roof over the checkpoint. There wasn't
too much traffic. Many pedestrians were refused passage, some of
them women with small children. Teachers were not allowed to pass,
because this is the school vacation. People were advised to go
through Surda. There seemed to be a lot of "education"
going on. People from Nablus seemed to get especially bad
treatment. We pleaded successfully for a young woman with a bunch
of small children. In one instance, one soldier told another,
"You decide, it's up to you". The soldier decided not to,
for no real reason. It seemed that today most of the discretion was
used against the Palestinians. One particularly aggressive soldier
demanded that we move away, and when we resisted, took on the
Palestinians as a way to punish us. A., who is in charge, managed
to calm things down. Later, that soldier even let a young couple
pass who wanted to celebrate their one week wedding anniversary
with their family in Jerusalem, though they had been refused
earlier.