Qalandiya

We arrived at Qalandya at about 4pm and
all seemed to be very quiet with not too much traffic. At the south
end we saw and were pleased to see the 2 officers who have been
friendly and helpful before. Or and Ariel. Or is the
senior.

It seemed that we have a good shift . A number of people who were
turned down by another volunteer we spoke to, heard and in the end
Or let them go. We had a woman from Bet Iksa who forgot her
documents at home, there was a woman with no permit returning from
a visit to the doctor, there was a Bir-zeit student who was born in
Kuwait to parents with an Israeli ID but whose application for
Israeli citizenship has not been completed yet and it was actually
her father who (like many times before) arrived, spoke to Or and
she went through, too.

In the middle of the shift Ariel, the officer and a Russian
speaking soldier put on their helmets and went toward the fence.
Soon after that we experienced our first shift with shooting. We
went beyond the checkpoint to wet closer and were amazed to see
that business as usual - the taxi drivers were shouting collecting
passengers to Ramallah, the vendors were selling, people were
walking and just a couple were looking in the direction of the
shooting at the fence. We distinctly saw that the soldier was
constantly aiming at kids we didn't actually see but obviously not
aiming in the air. We waited for the officers to return and saw the
Russian extremely upset and walking backwards still aiming his gun.
It was quite a bizarre spectacle because we were walking right next
to him telling him to stop and just get back to the checkpoint.
When we got closer we wanted to walk on the side and he asked us to
walk with him!!!. Back at the checkpoint we sensed that all was not
OK with Or and there was a lot of talking, telephoning and Or
taking the guy aside... We waited for them to finish and Gil spoke
to Ariel afterwards and got a sense of what it was about. The
soldiers feel that Fatah pays the kids to do damage to the fence.
So, our soldiers have to go and protect the fence and then there is
friction and kids throw stones and soldiers shoot. Gil asked about
regulations of shooting in the air in order to disperse a crowd of
kids and Ariel was suggesting that this doesn't impress anyone any
more so that the shooting with rubber bullets aims at bodies also
...It could have been an incident with far worse results and it was
so bizarre to be in the middle of it and the whole world around
just keeps going about as usual. And the same shooting soldier and
his officer returned to their job of checking people's IDs and we
trying to help those they turned away as if nothing happened in
betweeen!!!

All in all very drenching 3 hours at the checkpoint. We felt that
our presence maybe caused the officer to question the shooting
incident more strictly because we saw it...