Last week I was in Tulkarem for a placement visit, accompanying the work of my colleagues in this area. I enjoyed my time with old and new friends from Dar Qandeel, a Palestinian institute of arts that fosters Palestinian art and heritage, and had a great walk throughout the city during the day.
I also got to work with my colleagues in the Checkpoint. We got at Taybe checkpoint at 3.30 am and at this time there were already about 300 people waiting inside this kind of cage to the opening of the checkpoint at 4.am. Taybe Checkpoint is open only to Palestinians that have permits to work in Israel.
This is a private checkpoint so you can’t see people once you go inside – Palestinians get checked by this various machines and hear the instructions through the sound system inside it – that is no human interaction going on here, so you really feel as if you were a character of Orwell’s book.
People were packed inside in what I call the first cage until 4.15 am when the green light was turned on and they could go through it (that’s when the video starts). Then they went to this other cage and waited one by one the other green light so they could pass to get checked inside. I had people telling me that they take longer to open the gates when the EAPPI team is not there. Horrendous experience, I stayed around half an hour looking at this and was seriously disturbed. The sense of cruelty was not bearable for me at 4 am in the morning when the air was so fresh, the stars were glooming and I looked around myself and saw this surreal reality. So I went to the tents of falafel and coffee, had milk with ginger and honey (what a special treat!) and also drank tea and coffee…
The milk, the coffee and tea were delicious!! The bitter reality makes every bit of sweetness sweeter and the looks of support and care mean everything: they are life and love in high dosage!
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