Qalandiya

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Aug-31-2003
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When we arrived it was quiet at Ar-Ram,
there was a very nice group of soldiers who were obviously friendly
with the locals. They said they're leaving today, border police is
coming back. The officer also said that they are less nice at
Qalandya--"Qalandya does something to you" they
said.

At Qalandya most of the soldiers were very strict, there was one
older man who used his judgment to let some Palestinians through
without proper authorization. Two of the soldiers were very
unpleasant, shouting and almost hitting the men or touching the
women. One of them apparently saw a Palestinian man they know
trying to go around the checkpoint and made him stand with his
hands in the air. The officer said the man comes by every day and
makes a nuisance of himself; the man said they had been keeping his
i.d. for several days. Eventually after we spoke to the officer and
he seemed to be trying to straighten things out, the man
disappeared. There was a woman who tried to convince the soldiers
to let her through and they refused; later we met her at Ar-Ram and
we all laughed.

When we returned to Ar-Ram the soldiers said they had a 'case'for
us: a Palestinian man came to them after being hit by a border
policeman on the side street below the machsom. They gave him water
to drink but didn't seem to know what to do with him. He was
spitting blood from his wound but he was more angry than
frightened. Neta phone Safadi and he talked to the man. We went
down to speak to the border policemen. They were obviously unhappy
that the incident had come to light, though of course they denied
it. There were about 8 Palestinians sitting in the sun near them
waiting to be allowed to go on. We took the the jeep number and the
name of the officer. Safadi said the man should go to the police at
Neve Yaakov to file a complaint so we took him there. They at first
started to tell him 'go here, go there', until Neta straightened
them out. We had to leave, the man, who has a press card, seemed to
know how to handle himself.