An Early Morning at Qalandiyah

Qalandiyah, as mentioned in an earlier blog, is the main checkpoint between Ramallah, one of the biggest cities in the West Bank, and Jerusalem, and it fields most of the traffic coming from the northern part of the West Bank into Jerusalem. So if you live in the north and need to get to work in Jerusalem, your mornings are spent at Qalandiyah.

I’ve already described the layout there so I won’t go into too much detail. It has three initial turnstiles followed by four metal detector checkpoints. We try to go there at least twice a week to monitor the checkpoint and help people with their difficulties, whether it’s getting through the humanitarian gate, the gate for women, the elderly and the sick, or helping people connect to other organizations, Machsom Watch or the International Committee of the Red Cross, that can help them with permit problems. As I mentioned before, anyone coming from the West Bank (a green ID holder) must walk through the checkpoint, only Jerusalem (blue) ID holders can go through via car or bus, which takes much less time.

The checkpoint is an intolerable place and one of the most difficult tasks for me as an EA. We leave Augusta Victoria at 4:30 and get to the checkpoint around 5:00. There is always a large crowd of men waiting outside the initial set of turnstiles anxious to get to work, so they begin to climb the fence in an attempt to jump into the turnstile in front of everyone else waiting in line—not really a line though, more like a pile of people pushing and shoving, trying to gain entry any way they can. The working day is from 7 to 3, so people come as early as 4 am or before, but the problem is that the people in charge of the checkpoint only keep one metal detector gate, out of five, open during the early hours. They wait until 5:30 to open the rest of the gates, but, by that time, huge crowds of people are waiting outside the first turnstiles, so you have a very chaotic situation. And more and more people continue to come throughout the morning in taxis and services all throughout the northern villages and towns of the West Bank, so when the metal detector checks begin to slow then things just get worse and worse—three to four people mashed together in the turnstiles for example.

Some people have approached us trying to explain why those waiting to get through behave as they do—the pushing, shoving, shouting, and climbing. But, of course, we tell them it is unnecessary. Many have told us that if they are late for work a couple of times it is ok, but they are in danger of losing their jobs if they are consistently late. For someone providing for a family of seven or eight getting to work on time is about survival. If I had to go through the same procedure every morning, I would be one of the ones climbing the fence and jumping into the turnstile. It pains me to see these grown men have to be reduced to this every morning.

The Humanitarian Gate (HG) is another major problem. Because women, some for religious reasons (they are not allowed to come in contact with the men), cannot go through the main gates, as well as older men, the sick, and children, there is another gate solely for them that is opened periodically throughout the morning but not with any regularity. Of course, the younger men, seeking any way to get through, will also attempt to pass through the HG. This creates a problem because it angers the policeman in charge of it and creates further delays. The hardest part is seeing women holding their crying babies as they wait, sometime as long as a half hour, but the worst is seeing some of the sick people who have to wait, some too sick to stand so they lay on the dirty floor (and to think that this gate wasn’t opened to women and the elderly at the beginning, the women at Machsom Watch had to work hard to get the military to keep it open every morning).

We see the misery of the checkpoints every morning we go, but we also here people’s stories and frustrations. They ask us why the international community is not at Qalandiyah at 5 am, why no one is there to report the hell they go through each morning just to get to work. Just last week, we met a man who had bruised and broken several ribs because he fell trying to get into the turnstile and was out of work for a month. But he was back because he had to work, and with the high unemployment in the West Bank many people turn to work in Israel, they have no other choice. So he was back, climbing the fence again. His story is not unique either, we have heard many more like it.