Qalandiya

A long, slow morning

All five checking stations were open when we arrived at 5:30 a.m. but the lines already extended well out into the parking lot, and so the situation remained all morning. The pace of advance was particularly slow, and when we followed a man who had just joined a line deep within the parking lot we found that it took him 35 minutes to reach the entrance to the checking station.  Mornings like these are full of anger and complaints. On the other hand, we spoke with a man who said he had come to specially to Qalandiya from Bethlehem because the situation at the checkpoint there was even worse.

The Humanitarian Gate was opened at 6:05 (!), by the DCO soldier who has been on duty steadily for the past few months, and again each time people gathered in front of it until 7:13. Thereafter, she began sending people to the lines through the “cages,” even though the latter still extended beyond the shed.

We joined one of these lines at 7:20 and left the checking station half an hour later (most of the time spent on the line into the checking station itself). We had the impression that the slow movement was due to a new group manning the checking stations but were not able to verify this.