Qalandiya - a woman-soldier is chasing away the Palestinians still waiting, and locks the gate.

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Place: 
Observers: 
Tamar Fleishman; Translator: Tal H.
Aug-13-2019
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Afternoon
 
It’s a holiday with no holiday celebrations, and a new checkpoint with nothing new about it.
True, most businesses and shops in the Qalandiya refugee camp are shut in honor of this Holiday of Sacrifice, but the atmosphere that reigns is of ‘normal’ workdays, not holidays.
The conversation piece of the day was the confiscation of Shadi’s vehicle on alleged grounds of taking passengers’ fare.
Shadi is a cab driver without a cab license.
How do they know he doesn’t charge fare? No one, after all, except the few informants who benefit from being informants volunteers to tell them what is being done. So they stop the vehicle and ask the passengers, who keep silent at first, but after being threatened by being blacklisted and/or having their permit revoked, acquiesce and confess.
Now Shadi’s vehicle is confiscated for a month. Then he will stand trial, be convicted, and fined for some thousands of shekels and on conditional prison term for two years or more.
True, the new checkpoint structure shines, true  - a guest for a moment might imagine he has entered a modern, efficient plant.
But as for the treatment of the thousands of Palestinians who must arrive there, stand in line and obey the soldiers’ orders and undergo inspection, it’s all old news.
Then as now, they are rushed among different tracks, waiting lines grow longer and people who had stood first in line find themselves at the tail end, again and again.
It’s better now, said the policeman in praise of the checkpoint, now there’s hardly any friction with them (the Palestinians…).
And I know that “hardly any friction with them” is precisely what turns them, the Palestinians, into the non-present. One needs to actually see, touch, listen and smell humans to know they exist.
 
Further, deeper into the checkpoint compound, to the DCO offices – the time is 15:40, namely 20 whole minutes prior to official closing time. A woman-soldier is actually chasing away the Palestinians still waiting, and locks the gate.
-But it’s not 4 o’clock yet, I argued.
-We close early today.
-Have you notified the Palestinians of this change?
She shrugged and vanished.
-But my wife needs a permit for the hospital…, a young man tried.
-I was notified that my permit is ready here, please take it from the desk and give it to me, another one tried.
But they, as others, had to make do with the soldier’s shrug and “come tomorrow”…