Checkpoint 300

We got to Checkpoint 300 separating Bethlehem and the southern West Bank from Jerusalem at 6:30am.

Immediately, Palestinians told me that I should not try to take delegation through... that it was crammed and only a few minutes earlier, soldiers had used tear gas in the crowd of Palestinians waiting to get through. “They’ll get crushed... haraam. Perhaps you can go around with them?”

Palestinians, denied free access to Jerusalem and forced to endure humiliating and taxing conditions in order to pass for work, school, medical attention, or other personal reasons, were concerned about internationals, who, by virtue of their foreign passports, would not be harassed by the soldiers and could use a special lane to bypass the locals. Many of them — day laborers — had been there since 4am.

By 7am, a number of the men had started to turn back. They had given up on making it through in time to make it to work at an acceptable hour.

There were some students, some medical cases, but by and large, the majority were men of all ages, some into their sixties, trying to get through to in order to work and bring home bread for their families.

I could not bring myself to take out my camera, though I asked the men, penned in the corrals, if anyone minded other members of the delegation photographing. Reactions varied; mainly skepticism as to whether anything anyone could do would help.