Qalandiya - for two hours, pushing, shouting and climbing over the entrances

Total Despair

Four of the five checking stations were open when we arrived at 5:30 a.m. but there was no movement forward into them (we had the impression that the soldiers manning them had just arrived and not yet set up the computers and other machinery).  Even at this early hour, there was already a mess by the left “cage” (bar-lined passageway leading into the area of the five checking stations) – the one we have been reporting for years as a magnet for violence because it can be entered both from the back and from the side. It was therefore not surprising that the line discipline collapsed at 5:38 and led to the usual melee that consists of mobbing the entrances to the three “cages” – pushing, shouting, whistling, and climbing above the entrances, etc.  And so it went on – just imagine – for two hours (and perhaps longer, but due to a commitment at our work place we had to leave the checkpoint after two hours). At 6:30 we saw what might be construed as the beginning of lines reforming to enter the right and middle cages, but they collapsed again a few minutes later.

At 6:10 we called the Humanitarian Line to ask when the gate would be opened.  Immediately after we had identified ourselves  and before we could announce the purpose of our call, the soldier on the other end of the line (who was evidently aware of the situation at the checkpoint) informed us that the units operating the checkpoint were suffering from a lack of manpower and the Palestinians would just have to be patient.  If he thought we would relay this message to the angry and frustrated folks waiting to get to work, he was mistaken. Nothing outrages people waiting to pass through a checkpoint more than the claim that the IDF lacks sufficient manpower to operate the it properly – and rightfully so. But we kept our cool (after all, the soldier on the line was not responsible for the deplorable situation at the checkpoint) and asked about the Humanitarian Gate.

It opened a few minutes after our call, at 6:20, and the soldier and security guard checked every permit thoroughly before allowing people to pass because a crowd of men who are not entitled to pass through it had gathered at it in the hope that, despite it all, they would be allowed to pass through since, for hours, it had been impossible to pass via the three cages without danger to life and limb.

At 7:30, as the melee by the entrance to the three cages continued, we passed through the Humanitarian Gate and exited the security check within 15 minutes.