Falamiya North Checkpoint (914), Falamiya South Checkpoint (935)

Falamiya, Jayyus checkpoints

The occupation routine and ambiguity as to the opening hours of the checkpoints

I asked the morning shift whether they had changed the opening hours in the afternoon and as far as they knew there had been no change, so we arrived at the Jayyus CP 935 (Falamiya South) at 17:05 (according to what was a fortnight ago, the opening hour should have been16:50 but there were more traffic jams on the way than we had anticipated).

There was nobody around, not even persons who might perhaps have passed already, who should have been on their way towards us. When we approached the gate we saw from afar a car at the fence, which, as turned out later, was the car in which the soldiers drove to the Falamiya North CP 914.

We continued immediately to the Falamiya North 914 CP and indeed the soldiers' car was already standing there.

17:20 Falamiya North 914 CP was opened. Very few people were waiting to pass (all in all about 15 people passed) although in the morning (as we were told) usually about 70 people or more used to pass here. Our conclusion was that owing to the terrible heat and the late opening hour (about which the farmers complain) probably most people returned at noon.

The passage was easy and we were only worried by a child who sat in the shed, waiting. We drew the attention of the soldiers, who went to shut the gate at the scheduled hour, to the child. The boy jumped up from where he was sitting and managed to explain to the soldiers that he was waiting for his father. And indeed the father could be seen from afar running toward the gate. The soldiers, unlike most other times, told him not to run and waited until he arrived so that both could pass.

Out attempt to find out from the soldiers when the Jayyus gate 935 was scheduled to be opened, met with a refusal to give information.