Sunday, July 25, 2010
Checkpoint at Qualqukya, 4:00 am

A nearly full moon draws a light fresh breeze across the hills and valleys carrying the promise of a new day for waking villages. Only the rooster’s crow and the donkey’s bray break the stillness announcing a fresh start cleansed of the shadows of yesterday. The fading dew has quenched the thirst of the olive and fig trees and teased out the aroma of pungent herbs. (Soon it will go the way of the gently dawning light as the hot summer sun bursts upon the land).

Desecrating this moon lit cradle of rebirth is a persistent darkness that feeds on the dehumanizing engine of the Qualqilya Gate gearing up for another day. Before the last seconds of midnight have receded into yesterday, the shadows of 3000 men and women begin to pile up against that gate. Here desperation, determination, and dehumanization mightily reign. No promise of regal sun here, only the thick film of choking air filled with cigarette smoke, rotting discards of hastily eaten breakfasts and the odor of anxiety and fear. Beyond the eight-foot tall turn style gate, high wire fences define the path to the soldiers who decide who will enter one more day for work or reuniting with family. The glorious dawn is smothered in tears that pretend to come from churning specks of debris.

At 4:00am the gates are opened by unseen soldiers watching from above. People surge forward, straining against the tiny opening that tightens the crowd into a single thread, to be squeezed through the spinning gate one at a time. The pressure is immense, sometimes clogging the spinning gate as people pile up against it, some thrust upward onto another’s shoulders to cling high on the fence surrounding the gate. Soon several large forceful union men gain control of the determined surge, relieving the pressure, clearing space here and there with forceful words and powerful bodies freeing the gate to spin and thrust people through singly into the long tunnel to the soldiers waiting at the end to admit or deny passage.

For two and a half hours men and women file through to entrance to meet their fate for the day. Dignity is illusive, expressed only in a spark of a smile in response to a greeting, “sabah ilkher”, or in conversation with a friend. Many look away, embarrassed or angry, others walk with the stooped burden of many past days traveling this gauntlet of desperation. On and on it goes, today is your day: enter. A green card slightly split: no entry. A green card dated for tomorrow: no entry. After two hours in line: entry but no more work available.
And so it continues, everyday the same thing, people grasping for dignity and hope coming up with dry sand slipping through their fingers. The moon continues to wax and wane over fading promises lost in the darkness of military power, economic strength and political manipulation.