From Ramallah to East Jerusalem

F worked for 14 years in Jerusalem before the wall was built. He travelled to and from Ramallah where his family live every day, it took fifteen maybe twenty minutes. He took a road which brought him directly to East Jerusalem. Since the wall his story is very different.

In order to work in Jerusalem Palestinians need a permit. Unless they have one, they will not be allowed through the checkpoint at Qalandiya, the check point between Ramallah and East Jerusalem. Qalandiya is one of the largest Israeli military checkpoints in the occupied West Bank. It is not located on a border, but between Palestinian towns and neighbourhoods.

F’s boss – who he has worked for over the last 14 years applied for a permit for him. It costs $1500 for a six month permit and on top of that 800 NIS – around £130 (new Israeli sheckles) each month.

Every day he crossed through Qalandiya checkpoint, every day he was taken into a tiny room – he showed us photos – and held there for any amount of time from 5 minutes to three hours. Inside the room where he was usually left alone, there was a constant high pitched sound – he covered his ears with a napkin and played with his phone in an attempt to drown out the noise. Often the officers (often female) would knock on the window, tell him to take the napkin away from his ears and stop playing with his phone. When he didn’t they came in and did it for him. They told him he was crazy – he asked what they wanted him to do while he was sitting there waiting for them to release him so he could carry on his way. There are no cameras in these rooms so the IDF can do anything they like unobserved and unrecorded.

After one month – he had five months left to go on his (legal) permit, without any explanation they took the permit away from him and told him to go home.

Without a permit at this time which was about a year ago, there were only a few ways into East Jerusalem. One was through the underground sewage canal. When F needed to travel to Ramallah he would return this way. Sometime he would leave Ramallah at five in the morning and not arrive until midnight. He could spend fifteen minutes or all day underground waiting for the army to leave the exit point of the sewage system. Sometimes he was alone, other times he could be with up to 100 people.

Then the army closed this exit point permanently so they had to find another way, which was over the wall. At this point the wall in this area was around 6 metres high. F would climb to the top of a building which was around the same height and balance a plank of wood between the roof and the wall and walk over. When the soldiers saw them doing this they shot at them – one day ten jeeps arrived to look for him in the building. He hid for two hours until they left.

Then the height of the wall was extended, from 6 metres to around 14 and it became much more difficult to jump over.

A year later he tried again to get a permit. His boss paid another $1500 and 800 NIS per month. Again each day he was taken into the room and left there with the sound. At Qalandiya checkpoint there are five different ‘lanes’. After around 20 days as he got to the front of one of these lanes, they closed the access point. ‘Mohamed’ the female IDF soldier called out – his name isn’t Mohamed but such is the disrespect of the Israeli army – and ordered him to enter the room or he wouldn’t be allowed to pass. Inside the room were four female IDF soldiers. Once the door was closed they start to touch him, tell him he is beautiful. One signalled to her breasts, told him ‘silicon, silicon, touch, touch’. He was afraid that they would put him in unwillingly in a compromising position, perhaps take photos and blackmail him – this often happens and people are forced to find out ‘inside information’ and give it to the army. If they don’t they know to expect the worst.

He told them to open the door, demanded to see their boss – they said he wasn’t working as it was Shabbat. So he started to shout and beat the door. She called him ‘mastul’ – ‘crazy’ in Hebrew and let him go.

The following days, the same female IDF soldier denied him entry through the checkpoint, told him he couldn’t pass. She brought her boss – F told him what had happened in the small room but the officer in charge didn’t believe him. Instead he threatened that if F made problems here he wouldn’t ever pass to go to work.

After that, F looked tried to make sure he avoided the lane where this particular IDF soldier was. Still every day he was held in the checkpoint room for between 5 minutes and three hours.

A month and a half into his second permit, they took him into the small room and this time told him he couldn’t pass because the Shabak – the border police didn’t want him to. Again they took his permit from him and sent him home.

Now he stays in Jerusalem, in the shop he works in 24/7. He can’t even move around the Old City because the IDF might stop him arbitrarily and demand to see the permit he doesn’t have. If that happens he faces three years in jail. But he says ‘here I’m in jail, there I’m in jail. The only difference is that here I take money. There I don’t.’

He hasn’t been back to Ramallah for a month, hasn’t seen his family (as he’s telling us this story he remembers he hasn’t called his mother today – he calls her every day – and rushes off to call her) but soon he will return for Eid to be with his family and give money to the women of the family as is customary during Eid. We asked how he’ll get back to Jerusalem but he won’t tell us. It’s a secret...’ he said with a smile.