'Anabta, Deir Sharaf, Eliyahu Crossing, Habla, Sun 29.8.10, Morning

 Habla

06:45 – The gate is closed.  About 30 laborers wait behind the inner gate.  Only one soldier, an MP, explains that there’s been an alert.  He’s waiting at the inspection station.

06:50 – The military vehicle with the checkpoint commander arrives.  Five laborers enter.  The inspection is pretty fast, but the soldiers don’t allow the next five to wait outside the fence, and they waste time walking to the revolving gate and waiting for it to open – so by 07:10 only 15 people had gone through.

Eliyahu crossing

07:25 – About ten laborers still waiting to be inspected.

Jayyus

07:38 – The gate is open until 08:15.  A tractor and a car cross.  Leslie, the Irish volunteer from the Ecumenical organization, whose members have recently been next to this gate all the time, and who live in Jayyus, tells us that the gate opened ten minutes late.  Youths from Jayyus threw rocks at the soldiers when they drove first to Qalqilya to open the gate there at 06:15.  They then opened the Jayyus gate at 07:30.  According to the soldiers, the gate opened late because of the rocks, but they didn’t arrest any of the youths.

Leslie says that yesterday (Saturday) a teacher on vacation tried to go through with his tractor and the soldiers discovered among his belongings a component of an old concussion shell.  She said the soldiers panicked and alerted various units, until everyone figured out that it could be thrown away.  The teacher didn’t know who put it with his belongings.  He was detained for an hour and a half, and released.

Kafr Jamal

08:25 – We arrived here inadvertently, having intended to turn off to the Falamya checkpoint.  We must have missed the turn, but a taxi driver told us that in Kafr Jamal we could turn off to Falamya and reach the checkpoint.

Falamya

08:40 – We drive all the way through Falamya, which is full of greenhouses (some of them dried up), and arrive at a closed checkpoint.  The army’s sign on the gate doesn’t indicate when it opens and closes.  It might be seasonal, though the army hasn’t posted a sign with hours at the Habla checkpoint either.  We returned, disappointed, to Kafr Jamal.

 Kafr Sur 09:10 – The taxi driver’s directions were better this time.  We went out onto the road that goes down west and north along the security fence until the closed checkpoint.  We continued north and turned east on entering the village.  A young local man who’ll start working as a geography teacher in Safrin directed us to a road that for some reason doesn’t appear on the map.  It isn’t a good road but shortens the drive to Beit Lid and to Safrin nearby.  After letting him off in Safrin we drove back to Beit Lid. 

Beit Lid 09:25 – We left the center of Beit Lid to the east and glided along to Route 60, on the way to Beit Iba. 

Deir Sharaf 09:35 – We wanted to see whether the road to Jenin was open.  We rode until we reached the entrance to the army camp.  There’s an inactive checkpoint and soldiers guarding the entrance to the camp.  They don’t stop cars driving in any direction. 

'Anabta09:45 – One lane open in each direction; traffic is light, and flowing.  We see no soldiers in the inspection positions.  There might be someone in the tower.