Checkpoints and Chances

by Katharine Maycock

From: New Prospect (used w/permission)

The Bethlehem checkpoint has been closed for the last 16 days. So have the other exits and entrances to the town and its surrounding villages.

I've been getting in and out under curfew because

a) I use a car which has 'TV' written on its windscreen and windows rather than the normal bright yellow taxis

b) the driver is Christian and is prepared to risk being caught breaking curfew. He tells me the Israeli soldiers are more lenient towards Christians than Muslims, suspecting that 'terrorism' comes from the latter

c) I can afford four times the price I might otherwise pay under normal circumstances

d) if we do get stopped, my foreign passport could at the worst mean being arrested for being in a 'closed military zone' but it is likely I would just get told to go back home or out of Bethlehem

I have not yet encountered a single tank or army jeep in these strange journeys through silent streets. The re-enforcing of the curfew here does not seem too tight at the moment, which locals tell me means that the army intends to stay a long time. The 10km journey to Jerusalem takes double the time as well as the cost. We drive up a different hill miles from the main checkpoint, and at the top I get out and walk over a mud roadblock, then take any vehicle I can pick up down to the main Hebron road. Fantastic views over a beautiful land I think ironically, as I walk 'free'.

Some Bethlehemites are breaking curfew at the fringes of the town but most stay indoors as the situation could be volatile. The taxi driver has 6 children and he told me today they are going mad inside the house. So Bethlehem sits largely in silence; sewage smells increase and the rubbish of the last 16 days remains uncollected on the streets. Occasionally we come across a smoking rubbish container. Near Azza refugee camp on route between my flat and the mud roadblock 'exit' there are sometimes burning tyres - set up in defiance and anger by the young people in the camp. If the army do find people on the streets they sometimes use sound bombs or tear gas to disperse them.

The curfew started the day after the last suicide attack on a bus in Jerusalem (21 November) and has been lifted for only 11 hours since then. This week was the Eid al Fitr festival for the end of Ramadan, the month of charity and fasting, and one of the biggest festivals in the Muslim calendar. My Palestinian friends tell me it has not been a time of celebration this year. Normally everyone would have new clothes and the families would visit each other and break fast together. This year, it was only possible to get the basics to eat in the two 3 hour slots the shops were permitted to open in the lead up to the festival, and where possible buy new clothes for the children, if you had the energy to fight your way through the crowds.

Even when Bethlehem was not under curfew, most residents could still not get in or out. Palestinians are now defined by a plastic magnetic card. Everyone who wishes to travel into Israel (including East Jerusalem) from the West Bank has to apply for a permit, and the magnetic identity card is required for a permit to be issued. The application form for the ID costs 30 shekels (