The team that will replace us here in Tulkarem has arrived. Friday we showed them the check points we are monitoring. Usually it is calm on Fridays during Ramadan in this area (not to be confused with the situation at the terminals surrounding Jerusalem).
Queue, the new team reckons
But at this Friday they decided to close one of the check points in close to two hours while we were there. Then you have chaos even at a quiet Friday with queue as far as you can see in both directions. The excuse was a “terror alert” and a military mission in the Tulkarem area. Information regarding how long it would last were not given an some rumors was saying it could would be closed rest of the day. The only ones that were let trough were a lady and her child. This was after crying in front of the soldier for couple of minutes.
There were also flying check points*. Neither those are nice to look at. In other words it turned out to be a brutal meeting with part of the nature of the occupation for the new fellows.
Flying check point: First like this…
And then like this… It seems like a big share of the soldiers has a urgent lack of ordinary body language. A little later they were guiding the traffic by sitting in their vehicle and screaming from a load speaker.
*) flying check point is a check point established temporary on the road between the permanent check points on the West Bank.
