Habla Checkpoint (1393)

Opening Hours:13:15 to 14:15

13:00 We arrived too early.  We turned to the shed where people were already sitting, waiting. They didn’t tend to keep up a conversation, although they reciprocated our greetings warmly.

13:10 The military police arrived. In front of the entrance gate to Hable a truck was waiting.

13:20 The exit gate from Hable was opened and now they were busy opening the entrance gate. About eight persons were waiting here. An assortment of different vehicles were coming out from Hable one by one, we didn’t see whether they were checked: trucks, tractors with carts, cars, jeeps, tenders with drawn carts . Then a fuel tank passed from the direction of Hable and a variety of cars. In some of the cars we saw children.  Had the Summer Holidays begun?

The passage was quick and swift. A cart owner with a horse, which was towing the cart, and another horse drawn to the cart from behind, stopped next to us and complained about the short opening hours of the gate. He told us that in the past he had been subject to an accident when he had passed by the Eliyahu Gate. A vehicle had hit his horse and it had died. Since then he didn’t pass there but only by sandstone roads. He refrained absolutely from passing by paved roads.

The traffic was rather lively. All the time people, cars, horse drawn carts were passing. It seemed that the soldiers knew some of the persons passing.

Two young men went to sit in the shed and told us they were doing renovation jobs in Tel Aviv.

13:50 A driver of a tender loaded with plants was delayed to investigate his papers. His papers were checked and he was waiting. After a  ten minute check he was allowed to pass. The lively traffic in both directions was going on.

14:00 The traffic was quietening down.

14:10 The exit gate from Hable was being shut.

14:12 The entrance gate to Hable was being shut. There was nobody around.