Qalandiya

A calm morning at the Qalandiya CP

We arrived at the Qalandiya CP at approximately 5:20. It was still dark, but the temperature was relatively high and it was not as cold as it usually is during this season, so that there were not bonfires lit today. A group prayer welcomed us near the passage in the direction of Calandia. Inside there were 5 open posts. When we arrived the queues reached the end of the shed,  but when they opened the turnstiles the queues became shorter. A few women who arrived entered the enclosures from the side. During our entire stay, no long queues which flowed over beyond the shed, were formed. Did fewer people arrive today or were the examiners more efficient? It wasn't clear.

People told us that yesterday and the day before yesterday it was very bad, and our colleagues too reported thus on the 16.2.  In the aquarium there were a boy and a girl soldier. Some minutes later the girl soldier came out and it turned out that this was the soldier from the DCO, who usually comes to open the humanitarian gate later. In the past we already realized that she talks Arabic well, sounding as if it were her mother tongue. This time we conversed with her and understood she was a Druze from the north of the country, who serves in the IDF, in the DCO.

We met our acquaintance H., who works at the Mahane Yahuda market. He told us that lately curfews are imposed on the villages, from which the perpetrators of terrorist acts, came. He himself lives at Bidu, and he told us that this week, for two days the inhabitants of the nearby village Kubeibe were not allowed to leave for work as somebody from the village was involved in a terrorist act.

A policeman who arrived after the girl soldier from the DCO left, left too a short time later. To our surprise the soldier from the DCO returned at approx. 6:15 but didn't open the humanitarian gate, as there really was no need. The policeman and the security guard who arrived also left a short time later. The tea vendor at the kiosk asked us to point out in the report that the lightening in the shed was inadequate and that many fluorescent lights were missing. He prepared for us tea with zater, and we watched the glorious sunrise over the desert. When we finished drinking we joined the queue and passed quickly. Outside the dawn began to light up and the anemones bloomed between the mounds of garbage. By 7 we were already back at the center of the town.