Denied Access, Denied Dignity: A Testimony from Qalandiya Checkpoint
Israeli procedures blocked a direct ambulance route for a Palestinian worker injured while trying to cross the separation wall.
Time drags on. The money dries up. The stomach growls. There are no work permits.
What won’t a person do to bring home the basics? To provide for their family? To feed their children, their aging parents?
So they try, desperately, to reach any place where a pair of working hands might be needed. They push past physical barriers and bureaucratic mazes. They scale fences and walls. They risk arrest, injury, even death by gunfire.
One man from the West Bank had no rope, but he had no choice. He climbed the towering apartheid Wall and jumped, hoping the other side held a sliver of promise.
He landed hard. Too hard. Both legs were shattered.
He was given first aid in East Jerusalem. Plaster on both legs. But he couldn’t stay—because here, under occupation law, he was alone. His loved ones couldn’t come sit by his side, hold his hand, help him eat or use the bathroom. They’re forbidden from entering Jerusalem.
So he was sent to Ramallah for continued treatment, further diagnosis, maybe surgery. That’s where his family could be with him.
But even the journey back home was shaped by cruelty: under occupation rules, the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance from Jerusalem wasn’t allowed to cross the checkpoint. It had to stop at Qalandiya, unload the wounded man, and turn back. Another ambulance, from the West Bank, had to take over.
When they transferred him from one stretcher to the other, his face contorted in pain. But he didn’t make a sound. He bit his lip. He endured it in silence.
I stood nearby and told a security guard: “When I needed an ambulance, it took me straight to the hospital. No checkpoints. No delays. No armed men.” But there was no time for more words—life hurried on, as always, and we postponed the conversation.
There were other things being discussed at Qalandiya that day—the war with Iran, now just ended. The Palestinians there spoke of how they had no protection, no bomb shelters. When air raid sirens wailed in Jerusalem and the settlements, they could only look up and trace the missiles and interceptors across the sky. One man, from Se’ir near Hebron, said a missile struck his town and killed two girls.
I thought, too, of Israeli media—and what it chooses to say. I remembered a broadcast during one of the Iranian strikes: a missile reportedly aimed at Hebron. But when the final tallies came in, only Israeli towns were mentioned. Only Israeli casualties. No mention of the others. Not forgotten—just erased.
When a missile fell on Tamra, a commentator explained: “Many people in Tamra don’t like Israel.” As if that justified the silence. As if love for the state determines whether your life is mourned.
Maybe those two girls from Se’ir didn’t love Israel either.
(Translated by Tal Haran. Edited by the Palestine Chronicle)
– As a member of Machsomwatch, Tamar Fleishman documents events at Israeli military checkpoints between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Her reports, photos and videos can be found on the organization’s website: www.machsomwatch.org. She is also a member of the ‘Coalition of Women for Peace’ and a volunteer in ‘Breaking the Silence’. Tamar Fleishman is The Palestine Chronicle correspondent at the Qalandiya checkpoint.