Qalandiya

There was almost no traffic
at Qalandya. The checkpoint commander said that from now on the
goods pass through the new checkpoint at Bitunia. He also said that
everything is back to "usual", and IDs with permits are
allowed to pass, but we only saw blue IDs passing. There was a lot
of violence, pushing, shouts and blows, especially from 2 women
soldiers and the commander himself. Two women - one of them holding
a 2 months old baby weren't allowed to pass. As they insisted and
waited there for a long time, they were pushed and one of them hit.
After some time the two women snuck by, but got caught. The woman
with the baby got by on her second attempt, but the other was
brutally brought to the north checkpoint. She resisted and her
yelling gathered of a lot of Palestinians in the checkpoint area.
The soldiers reacted by pointing guns at the crowd. It was scary. A
young Palestinian asked for the permission (and got it) to calm the
woman down. Finally, she was released.

The atmosphere was tough, depressing and very frustrating. We
couldn't do anything to help.