Morning

Qalandya 7-10:30: Heavy movement of pedestrians and school children could be seen at E-Ram at 7:15 , but at 7:30 very few school children at Qalandya. We heard shots and ran down to see what was happening. A green plated taxi was forced to stop by shooting in the air and the keys were confiscated. The soldiers claimed that the driver disregarded their orders to stop a car and that the driver did a provocative finger gesture. The driver said that he has not seen soldiers and that he never did any gestures. The soldiers were not ready to return the keys to move a taxi out of an entrance to a stone shop, and said that they would punish this driver for 5 hr. We called Moked and spoke with the soldiers on behalf of the driver few times. After 2 hours, we were told that the driver will be released soon. We got the same report from Moked with an explanation that the case is rather delicate: The car had green plates (Palestinian authority car registration) and blue ID (Israeli citizen) taxi driver. The Moked person was afraid that the blue police would become involved if we will pushed too strongly. We were not allowed to pass to Qalandya North (closed military zone). After calling the command, permission was arranged for us to go North. At Qalandya North the taxi driver station-shabby cover against rain and a place to prepare coffee" were destroyed as well as all vendors' places. Soldiers said that they interfered with the checkpoint activity. Tora Bora bypass was very active in both directions. A driver tried to pass North to get medical treatment. At his first attempt he was returned back because he by passed a waiting line. On the second attempt, an invalid driver told the soldiers that they should not treat disabled people the way they treated him , and he was returned on the grounds of rude behaviour towards soldiers. On the third attempt, he passed after our strong pressure and his promise that he would not say anything to the soldiers. Green plated taxis were randomly stopped at Qalandya South and forced to pass North. Some drivers were aware of this danger and tried to bypass Qalandya area through the E-Ram hill.