Qalandiya - a control system over everyone coming back to the West Bank has been installed

Every time I drive to Qalandiya I look over at Ofer detention/prison camp and think of those who are held there and wonder who - of my acquaintances - is either there now or likely to end up there amidst these suffocating walls.

So there, as I reached Qalandiya and stood with a group of old acquaintances, I was told that

• Several days ago, the army broke into Abdallah’s home and took him.
• Why? What was he accused of? I asked.
• That he’s Hamas. That’s what his father and his brother Ibrahim said, whom I know.

So now Abdallah, too, is imprisoned in Ofer.

I write this because his younger brother, Ahmad, too, indicted following a rather anemic post on Facebook, was sentenced to six months and is held at Ofer.

Abdallah’s sentence was only one month, and I wonder: Only one month?

For lesser violations than belonging to a terrorist organization they sentence one for a year and more, over there at the military court.

So it’s true that in recent years, losing any hope for any kind of horizon, Abdallah has become more religious and regards the observing of Islam writs  his own personal fulfilment, but I who have known him and his family for years can say that he has nothing to do with terrorist activity.

What can I say, broken hearted with the fact that he is held at Ofer? I know what kind of a man Abdallah was before being sent to jail. I have no idea, however, what kind of a man he will be when he gets out of this horrid place.

What I also found out during the hours I spent on both sides of the checkpoint, is that the closure and its rules continue, that the vehicle checkpoint has resumed its usual activity, that the pedestrian checkpoint shuts down every day at 5 p.m. and is opened only at 5 a.m. the next morning; That throughout the West Bank, villages whose entrances were blocked with barriers and boulders have been opened, and that from the coming Friday, pre-Ramadan, entrance of East Jerusalem residents to Al Aqsa Mosque is limited to forty-year-olds and up.

The news at the checkpoint itself is a control system over everyone coming back to the West Bank.

A sign has been installed over the entrance, informing the public of this fact, and two rows of inspection installations on the walls guide the pedestrians how to use the surveilling and controlling system.

The gate at the exit and entrance to the checkpoint compound whose top half is left broken and not only strong fellows jump over it to spare themselves walking the exhausting hundreds of meters - women and children do too.

Talking with one of the security guards there, I was glad to discover that we agree on the need for dialogue between enemies, that one needs to speak directly and not through mediators, or as the guy said, “Not by broken phone.”