Qalandiya
A woman cancer patient was transferred according to protocol. Coordination papers were checked according to protocol. The IDs of the woman herself, her sister who accompanied her, and the medical teams were all checked according to protocol. The luggage of the cancer patient and her sister were inspected according to protocol.
Everything was done according to protocol.
The protocol was performed patiently, calmly, nothing was urgent, nothing drastic.
The security guards and soldiers whose word is law here took their time in such a non-urgent manner that we – two Red Crescent teams and myself – had ample time to have a conversation about what happens, and what had happened. Especially what had happened that very day at Deir Nizam village. Among them was an old acquaintance of mine who was alerted a few hours earlier to rescue those who were shot there by the army. “There was a kid there who was hit here by the bullet”, he said, meaning the boy who was murdered, and pointed his finger and pressed it to his throat, under his jaw. “This is where the bullet entered and from here it continued to his head. In Deir Nizam, like in Nabi Salah, they’re all Tamimis.”
Only at 16:30 did the cancer patients’ transport to the Gaza Strip final get on its way.
Seven and a half hours after the group of people – numbering eleven persons, women, men, the elderly and one toddler – were released in the morning from various hospitals and arrived at the checkpoint. All of them were very unwell, all of them needing to recover at home, in bed. They had to sit on the stiff metal benches and wait since 9 a.m.
“Chapeau to you at B’Tselem” (Israeli human rights organization) a man said to me and vanished into the transit.