Etzion DCL
Visitors to the “whitewashed” Qalandiya should also visit the DCO at Etzion to understand what is behind this renovated and now admittedly much more efficient checkpoint. There you see all the people who can go through to Israel but at the DCO you see those who cannot.
We arrived to find the parking lot packed with cars but for some reason within 10 minutes it had emptied out and was only half full. In the waiting room were 4 young men and then three elderly ladies entered and one of the young men showed them the process to be followed. During the rest of our shift he seemed to be acting as a guide to others who came and were ignorant of what to do. During the rest of the morning however there was a constant stream of people.
A young man arrived who said that he had been at the secret service 6 months before and had been told that by one of the captains that his security limitation had been lifted but it has not been. We told him to contact Sylvia in the hope that she would be able to help him. He was told that he had to have an offer of work from someone in Israel, a photocopy of his ID and also his magnetic card and she gave him the number of a man in Hebron and the telephone who could help him. This man is also in contact with Sylvia and only takes 50 shekel in payment. People were told not to take a lawyer by their own initiative. One man said he had paid 12,000 shekel to such a lawyer with no results.
At one stage the soldier called to us and told us that, as Israeli citizens, we were forbidden to be there as the waiting room is only for Palestinians. We said that we had been coming for years (probably before he was born). He then said he would call the police and we told him to go ahead. Later another heavily armed soldier with a big kippa on his head entered. The soldier inside told him very worriedly that we were sitting inside. So he also told us that if we did not leave, he would call the police and have us arrested. We also told him to go ahead. As this was near the time that we would in any case have left, we waited until he had gone before leaving ourselves so as not to let him think that his threats had had us quaking in our shoes. But it shows you how limited the knowledge is of the average soldier is and reminds us that we are Israelis citizens and do not have to be nervous as a Palestinian would.
A young man who was a Jordanian citizen but had a Palestinian ID and lived in Hebron approached us. He has a wife and children in Jordan and wants to visit them. But he is not allowed to leave Israel. He had gone to the crossing and been refused. He has been back several times and being Ramadan he wanted to visit them. We advised him to contact the Center for the Defence of the Individual. He was given the number of Amira Hass.
A poorly dressed man with two children told us that he had seven children with him. No place to live as they had been with his family for two months and had been told to leave. He lives in the street, the children do not go to school and sleep at night in his car. He is also a security risk but he did not know why. Again we gave him the number of the Centre. He wants to join his wife in Israel but did not seem to be having much luck as though he went into the area of the offices he was still wandering about when we left.