Qalandiya - Routine of Occupation

All five checking stations were open when we arrived at 5:30 a.m. but the rate of progress into them (and thus in the previous stage, through the cages) ranged from agonizing slow to nonexistent.  It improved during the morning except for Station No. 2, which, for some reason, remained aggravatingly slow throughout the shift. At one point there was also a problem with opening the turnstile of the right-side cage but it was solved once we were able to speak at 5:50 with the soldier, in the “Aquarium,” responsible for opening the turnstiles. In the course of the shift, the longest lines reached halfway through the erstwhile parking lot.

A Civil Administration officer arrived at 6:20, opened the Humanitarian Gate and continued to operate it smoothly until about 7:25 (when we met him at the exit from the checkpoint).

All in all it was a morning without major hitches or dramas, just the eternal weight (and wait) of living under occupation. At 7:00 we joined the shortest of the lines moving through the cages and exited the checking station 25 minutes later.