CHECKPOINTS and WALLS in various forms

Welcome notice!

QALQILYA

Its 4 o'clock in the morning and David and I have our last checkpoint watch at Qalqilya, where the Jayyous team is present twice a week to 6 o'clock, and it is dark and freezing cold. To be present at this checkpoint, as well as three agricultural gates is the main tasks of an Ecumenical Accompanier (EA) in the area around Jayyous, and some of the other placements. There are big checkpoints in Tulkarem and Bethlehem and Jerusalem too.

On Sundays we have 4000 men and between 40-80 women passing to go to work in Israel or try to get work. A lot of the men are smoking heavily, maybe from stress? Still some wear sandals and no cardigan.  Our task has been to count the men and women that have to pass this checkpoint every day.

This is a very discriminating way of control, and shows the occupation very clearly. Everybody is talking about the gates and the checkpoints. "Look what they have done to us", we hear every day. "Can you do something about this?" It is almost like the wall  has moved into our heads and hearts, its a sad story. Nevertheless, people here are so friendly and welcoming, "welcome, welcome", we hear all day. Standing in the dark to go through the turnstiles, they must be the most patient people in the world. The Palistinians are living behind the wall/fence or prison1) and do not have access to their work or their land.

 And the wall is in some places far beyond the green line 2) that was agreed in the Oslo agreement.



Qalqilya checkpoint

 What does this prison look like? It has different forms along the green line.2) On the Palestinian side it looks like a fence or a wall, but from the Israeli side it has been transformed /camuflaged to look like parks, greens etc. so that only the top is visible from the tourist buses. We went by bus to Haifa, so that we have seen for myself. These walls are 8 meters high (the Berlin wall was 4 m)! Some places its more like a tall fence, but with three gates, nobody tries to climb over it as encouraged in Psalms 18, 29; "yeah, by thee I can crush a troop; and by my God I can leap over a wall"..or in Ephesians 2,14; "For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility"...we hope that it one day will happen, insh`Allah...

Permit

We write gatelogs and weekly logs that are distributed to all our country contacts and we report on what we see. Sometimes the men are turned back, and we try to ask for what reason and the answer is often; "finger print does not match", and some have really heavy work that might change their skin, "date has expired" etc. This they have done now for about 8 years! Lining up, so patiently, and humiliated with the green card in their hand. (LUA I HÅNDEN) And the same people have to come back in the evening, so there is very little left of the day. Yves and I tried to go through with them, but we were turned back and told by the watch that it was only for Palestinians. We can easily go through another gate with our "good" passports! There is a private company monitoring this checkpoint, and not Israelian soldiers. They are shouting orders over the loudspeakers in Hebrew, and many of the Palestinians don't understand that language.

JAYYOUS
In Jayyous, we have three agricultural gates;

North gate no 943

North gate

We have been to this gate every day, since we came, unless when we were all away one week, very busy here at the olive season. The donkeys and tractors come down the very bumpy and dusty road, and 5 people on the tractors, and some in the wagon. Some times people are turned back here too,  and then some have a permit also for the Falamya gate that is open all day.

Southgate

South gate no 977
This was busy during the olive season, but is very quiet in the winter season. It is, however, very important to be there and avoid that Israeli army close the gate for good. It is quite far for the people that live here to go through another gate.









Falamya gate 927
This is open every day from 5.15 to 17.45, but not everybody has this gate number in their permits.


BETHLEHEM

The team in Betlehem are monitoring the checkpoint every morning,  they only have a ten minutes walk to get there, but its hard to see the humiliation that this wall has created. Here the people go to work in Jerusalem, also a bit more fighting for the space here. I was with the team one night, and one of the metal detectors was not working, and the people in the queue was really stressed, a lady was crying. What is the point of having five windows open for checking the green card and finger prints as the next step then. They have to put the identity card up on the window and a finger on the fingerprint machine. It is very difficult to take good pictures in the middle of the night, because it is not allowed and the flash will be discovered, and we don't want to humiliate them more.

Betlehem checkpoint

Finally I will show a picture of the wall surrounding the house of Claire Annastas. The wall has been built around her house, she had a nice shop, nobody is coming by her shop anymore....

Wall in Betlehem

1)MUREN

 I  juli 2004 erklærte Den internasjonale domstol i Haag at murens rute er ulovlig. Byggingen av muren endrer den demografiske sammensetningen på Vestbredden og innskrenker den universelle retten til selvbestemmelse. Den har ført til konfiskering og ødeleggelse av privat eiendom, samtidig som den begrenser bevegelsesfriheten og tilgangen til utdanning, helsetjenester og arbeid for palestinere. Dette er i strid med internasjonal humanitærrett og menneskerettighetene, og domstolen har oppfordret Israel til å stanse byggingen av muren, fjerne de deler som allerede er bygget og kompensere palestinerne som har blitt berørt.Kilder: International Court of Justice

2)    Green Line Line drawn up by the 1949 Rhodes armistice agreement separating Israel from the West Bank. Since 1967, the green line provides the boundary between Israel and the occupied West Bank, which together with the occupied Gaza Strip, comprises 22 percent of pre-1948 Palestine. When Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords and modified their charter in 1996, they agreed to recognize Israel within the green line, thus conceding 78 percent of historic Palestine to the Jewish state. In some areas, such as north of Bethlehem, Israel has further extended its control, leading to the use of the phrase “creeping green line.”