Travelling in the West Bank
I have a couple of days off so I am going down to Jerusalem to get some rest. My journey starts at eight am and I am picked up in Yanoun by our friendly taxi driver Ghassan. Ghassan always gives us the latest news and updates on the local situation which is good since we lack internet connection. He drives me to the village of Huwwara just south of Nablus. On our way there I encounter the first roadblock of the day in the shape of an earth mound that the Israeli military has placed on the road to prevent traveling to other villages.
Huwwara has a big permanent checkpoint that has to be passed when entering or exiting Nablus from the south. I am just changing vehicles there so I do not have pass through the actual security check. I get into a “service taxi” that drives through a specific route as soon as it is full. Usually the “service” is a minibus but today I am unlucky as it is an extended old Mercedes barely with room for eight people. I end up furthest in, furthest back and have some trouble squeezing my long body into the seat. And I have to sit with my head bent during the whole trip since the ceiling is quite low. The car is soon filled up and the trip towards the next stop in Ramallah begins.
After just ten minutes we come to the next permanent checkpoint. Za’atar connects the north with the south and the east with the west here in the northern West Bank. It is a very important junction which means that when the Israeli military closes it, movement becomes very restricted. Today there are long queues leading up to the checkpoint and our driver gives up queuing after a while to drive past almost all the cars and tries to cut the line. The people in the front have been waiting for more than an hour and are therefore reluctant to let anyone pass. As soon as the next car is called for inspection the entire queue moves forward as one single organism. The reflexes of the drivers would make Michael Schumacher green with envy.
We are standing still for almost twenty minutes. I am stuck in the back of the car with no room to stretch either my legs or my neck, and the sun is burning through a window that cannot be opened. With five people talking in an incomprehensible language and blocking the only exit I feel claustrophobic for the first time in my entire life. After a few deep breaths I convince myself that nothing bad can happen and that this is part of these people’s lives.
Suddenly the driver finds a small space and we begin to move. The frustration among the waiting Palestinians is constantly present and since almost no one dares to argue with the soldiers, spontaneous fights and arguments erupt all the time amongst the Palestinians themselves.
We show our id’s and passports and are finally let through. In the lane next to ours the soldiers have released a dog into a car to search for something illegal.
At Bir Zeit we pass the next checkpoint. An entre- preneurial man walks between the cars selling coffee. There are twenty cars ahead of us so this time it only takes about eleven minutes to pass.
We arrive in Ramallah which is bustling with life and commerce. I finally switch to bus number 18 that takes me the final leg to Jerusalem. The bus holds seventeen passengers and is a lot more spacious than the “service”, but I still have trouble with my legs. A short distance outside Ramallah we arrive at the last and biggest checkpoint. Qalandiya is one of the big terminals built at the wall the Israeli government is erecting for most part inside the occupied Palestinian territory, and that in many places cuts right through different villages, effectively prohibiting people from meeting some of their former neighbours. If you are lucky to have a foreign passport or an id showing that you live in Jerusalem you can stay on the bus, but eight Palestinians with only a temporary permit to visit Jerusalem get off the bus to walk through the security check in the big building. Inside you first have to wait at a turnstile controlled by a guard behind bullet-proof glass. Then you get to one of the four lanes open for the moment. You are required to take off your belt and perhaps shoes, and to place them on the conveyor belt through the x-ray machine together with whatever bags you have. After passing through the metal detector you show your id and permit through a window and are hopefully allowed to pass. This time of the day things run quite smoothly and 21 minutes after getting off everyone is back on the bus again and it is only a couple of kilometres left to the last stop.
I arrive in East Jerusalem shortly after eleven, still without having left the occupied Palestinian territories during the entire morning. Today’s trip has taken three hours and ten minutes. Yanoun lies forty kilometres (25 miles) from Jerusalem. Forty kilometres that would have taken me forty-five minutes to travel had I had a car with Israeli plates and driving on the roads restricted for settlers and the military. The road we are forced to use is about twice as long.
Photos :
1. The first roadblock of the day
2. The “service-taxi” that takes me to Ramallah
3. Controlling id’s on the bus
