Abu Dis, Container (Wadi Nar), Mon 21.4.08, Afternoon
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Apr-21-2008
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Afternoon
Wadi Nar 15:00
We arrived there after a shift in Silwan. We decided to go to a place where the closure
will not be felt, but when we arrived at Wadi Naar the place was completely deserted. Every once in a while a car arrived. The BP man waved at the driver, and he crossed the checkpoint without being checked and kept driving. The situation is the same on both direction.
will not be felt, but when we arrived at Wadi Naar the place was completely deserted. Every once in a while a car arrived. The BP man waved at the driver, and he crossed the checkpoint without being checked and kept driving. The situation is the same on both direction.
15:05 Change of shifts. All the traffic at the checkpoint was stopped until another BP man of the new shift that has just arrived went to his place and waved at the drivers (they do not dare driving unless the BP man signals them to drive by waving(. The 15 cars that their drivers were waiting patiently go through the checkpoint within a minute.
15:09 Suddenly another BP man comes out raises his weapon and shouts: "Ambush, Attack, Fire! Fire! Fire!" Two more BP men join him, one of them is the BPman who has just until now wave the drivers to go through the checkpoint. The traffic stops. The BP men exercise an ambush. They kneel, advance while running stoop and shouting all the while "fire, fire, fire". We and the Palestinians in the front cars watch the surreal happenings. In the meanwhile there come, one after the other, about 20 cars.
15:14 The traffic is flowing again.
15:19 The BP man whom we call "fire, fire, fire" approaches us in order to find out who we are. When he return to the checkpoint he takes the place of the waving BP man. He stops every car, and takes the documents to be checked.
15:22 A taxi coming from Beit Lehem is being detained.
15:30 A taxi going towards Beit Lehem is being detained.
15:33 A taxi going towards Beit Lehem is being detained.
15:35 BP man "fire, fire, fire" asks a driver of an Opel station wagon to open the luggage compartement, to open a bag that was there and empty its contents. All this happens until 15:40. The driver and his car are being detained.
15:40 The passengers of the taxi going towards Beit Lehem 10 minutes ago get their documents back and can keep going on their way. Ten minutes are, indeed, not such a long time today (as we will find out later on), but in the blazing sun (it is 29 degrees in the shade, but who stands in the shade? what happens to those who dare doing it we will see) every minute is almost like eternity.
More taxis are being detained (we can't follow the times anymore, there are so many detained cars on both directions). At the entrance to the checkpoint, going to Beit Lehem, there are about 25 cars, and each has to stop for "a short talk" with the BP man, and for checkup of documents
.
The car that was detained at 15:35 can now continue on it's way.
The convoy towards Beit Lehem reaches by now the near hill, at the horizon. Almost every car, especially taxis on both sides, is detained for about a moment.
15:44 BP man "fire, fire, fire"has disappeared, and insteat emerges the waving BP man. Suddenly the traffic is flowing again, and about 20 cars, including many taxis, go through without any of them being stopped or detained.
15:44 BP man "fire, fire, fire"has disappeared, and insteat emerges the waving BP man. Suddenly the traffic is flowing again, and about 20 cars, including many taxis, go through without any of them being stopped or detained.
There are 5 detained taxis now, coming from Beit Lehem. The first taxi, that was detained at 15:22, can finally move on, after 25 minutes' wait in the blazing sun.
15:45 The traffic coming from Beit Lehem is flowing. There are about 25 cars waiting to drive towards Beit Lehem. There is no BP man in sight. The Palestinian drivers are waiting patiently. In most of the cars the windows are open. It is hot.
15:46 The waving BP man comes and signals to the drivers to go. One taxi driver pushes his way into the line. Immediately he is stopped by the BP man who signals him to get out of line and wait aside. The other cars who had been waiting stop, since nobody signals them to keep driving. The two BP men (the waving and the fire, fire, fire) approach the sneaking driver and talk to him, they take the documents of the passengers. The other car drivers are waiting patiently at the entrance to the checkpoint.
15:49 A BP man signals the drivers to go on. Every truck driver has to stop, get off, and open the back of the truck, a procedure that delays the traffic'of course.
15:55 Another taxi coming from Beit Lehem is being detained. The driver does not stop at the side of the road, but drives 5 meters further and stops at the other side of the road, in the shade. The passengers, among them a very old couple, get out of the taxi. Daniela comments: "He, at least, has some sense." But very quickly we find out that our sense is not so clear. A BP man wearing a black yarmulka approaches them and starts shouting at the driver: "What happens here? you try to make here a whore house? everyone will do whatever he wants?" As Daniela dictates to me his words he talks less loudly, collects all the documents, and tells the driver to move the car and park it nearer to the checkpoint, in the sun. All the passengers sit in the taxi, again, in the blazing sun, 29 degrees in the shade, that the Palestinians are forbidden to enjoy.
15:37 Every taxi going to Beit Lehem is being stopped right now. Ambulances are allowed to go through without being checked today.
16:00 We call the humanitarian center and report the many delays since this shift has begun.
Daniela notes that until now all the documents that were taken to be checked, and there were many of them, were returned to their owner, to the last of them. The BP man who gives them back to the passengers in the care can not walk much slower than he does now. What does he car? He is not the one being detained in the boiling cars without aircondiitioning.
16:05 The waving BP man stands at the checkpoint. He takes a look at the faces of the passengers in the taxi and signal them to move on without detaining any car. It is the first taxi in ten minutes that has not been detained. 31 cars go by, private cars, trucks and taxis, and no one of them is detained, no driver has to stop an open the luggage compartement.
BP man "fire, fire, fire"comes out suddenly and approaches a private car driver who comes from Beit Lehem and he is detained now. The Palestinian driver is arguing with him. It has been a long time since I heard a Palestinian talking in such an assured and assertive tone with an Israeli soldier. "You are detained" the BP man explains to the driver, "and as such I can decide everything about you: I can tell you not to exit your car, not to talk on the phone, not to smoke a sigarette". The man moves his car (that stood in the shade) to the sunny area and waits.
16:08 The waving BP man appears again and the traffic starts flowing. He stops a big car and takes the documents of the passengers to check, and then he is back into waving and the traffic is back into flowing. 23 cars, among them taxis and trucks go through subsequently.
16:15 A truck full of goats arrives at the checkpoint. The BP man stops it, goes to the back and tries to look between the legs of the goats if there is something else on the truck apart from the goats, and he pats one of the goats.
He is waving again, and the traffic flows again. Now there are 24 cars going through. He stops a car on which it is written in big letters: TV. He opens the door of the car, peeks between the legs of the people, and lets the car and all those behind it to go, and the traffic moves again.
For over 40 minutes there was a huge line of cars there because somebody thought that it is his job to check every document and document.
It needs to be reminded: in this checkpoint they check people who come from area B into area A.
16:23 The man who was detained at 16:05 is released. "They have no god, there is no law and no judge, with god's help the whole world will turn over" he shouts towards us in an excellent Hebrew, slams the door, and goes on, furious.
16:25 After having waited for half an hour in the sun the passengers of the taxi whose driver had the guts to stand in the shade are allowed to keep on driving.
We enter the grocery store near the checkpoint. "Nu" moans an old customer when he sees us "when will they open the road here? you should talk and do something that we will be able to drive in a car. Until when shall we take everything on donkeys?"
16:27 While I was writing down the words of the old man (about two minutes) BP man "fire, fire, fire" stands in the checkpoint, and instead of waving on the cars like his friend (when we entered the grocery store the checkpoint was empty) he stops and checks every car, and within these two minutes there is again a line of about 25 cars.
Depressed and despaired we left the place, watchin what some people do at the moment they are given a little bit of power. Where is Olmert? He should come and look at his soldiers with compassion.