Is this Jericho or is this Hell?
xen hasan | 15.08.2007 14:00 | Migration | Palestine
After more than a year in exlie, and 11 hours of hell at the border, we have been allowed back into Palestine. But the Israeli practice of blocking entry to articulate moderate Palestinians continues
Is this Jericho or is this Hell?
“They checked everything. They opened every single nappy, including the dirty ones.”
“When we left there were people still waiting in that Kafkaesque fly ridden purgatory, waiting to hear what had happened to their passports.”
“The saddest thing is that this whole frustrating journey is just normal everyday stuff for Palestinian people living in the West Bank.”
We're in. After more than a year we have been allowed back in to Palestine. It has been a long journey - we left the house at dawn and arrived at the Jordanian border control just after 8am. From there its a few minutes drive to the Israeli section of the border, then three and a half hours sat in a sweltering hot bus waiting at the entrance to the border compound. It was 40 degrees C outside, and the stationary bus was like a glasshouse.
Inside the compound, mukhabarat took me to one side as I was going through the x-ray. What followed was 7 hours of waiting and wondering. Said and I were both searched and questioned separately and told not to move from where we were sitting. We spent the whole 7 hours swatting flies away from the baby and our faces. All our bags had been taken away including hand luggage, snacks, water, and the baby's nappy bag. We had to ask 5 or 6 times to get a small glass of water. When Adam's nappy needed changed it took a bit of negotiating just to be allowed one nappy, cotton wool and Vaseline.
We were questioned a few times by different people, but most of the time we were just sat waiting. A lot of the time it felt like we had been forgotten. We kept asking border officials if they knew where our passports were, or why we were waiting. We were told: 'I don't have your passport', 'its not in my office', 'maybe someone else has it', 'you are not my problem', 'just shut up and sit over there', 'you do what we tell you - you don't ask any questions here', 'you are waiting for security reasons so you are not allowed to know about it', and many times someone said 'I'll go and find out' but never came back, or just shrugged when they saw us again.
Some things about the day were frustrating, like seeing a group of 20year-olds holding our passports looking over at us and talking, and ordering us to stay where we were when we began to approach them. Or like watching police open every item of our carefully packed bags, dump everything in boxes and take it away for 'checking'. And I mean everything. They opened new, sealed tubes of toothpaste and moisturiser. They opened every single nappy, including the dirty ones, and dumped them in with the clean clothes. And we realised today that all of Said's socks disappeared, so I guess they are still in Jericho stinking out the x-ray room.
Some things were humiliating. I removed my hijab when asked to in an examination cubicle. And then the young mukhabarat officer pulled back the curtain in front of a queue of 50 or 60 people, and shouted over to a colleague, so lots of people turned to look at us to see what the shouting was about. And, after removing my shoes and hair band so she could check my scalp and the soles of my stockinged feet, I was scrabbling my hair back into a ponytail. The young woman ordered me to pass her my shoes. They were on the floor right in front of her, but she didn't want to bend down to pick them up. I said 'just a second while I tie my hair back' and got shouted at for it - apparently I should do what I am told without delay.
We had organised this trip months in advance. I was refused entry last year, along with so many others. The Right to Enter campaign was set up in response to the recent Israeli denial of entry to most foreigners married to Palestinians and Palestinians with foreign passports. The Right to Enter group has worked tirelessly over the past year to address this apparently systematic removal of articulate Palestinian moderates, and denial of family reunification.
So I followed the new recommendations and arranged my visit in advance through the British Embassy and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I had an email from them saying we should have no problems at the border, and if we did encounter any problems we should call the MFA Situations room. I had a Palestinian sim card and a Jordanian one, but neither had any reception in the border compound, so about 5pm I started asking officials if I could use a phone to call the situations room. I was told 'I'll find out', I don't think so' and finally 'There is no problem, you don't need to call anyone'. So we carried on waiting - what else was there to do?
When we finally got through I could hardly believe it That was 7.30. We were bused to the Palestinian border control and arranged shared taxis from there to my husband's family house. The Jordan-Palestine border has 3 control points - Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian. I am not asking for entry to Israel, I want to visit family in Nablus, but the Israeli border police control entry to the West Bank.
It could have been worse – when we left there were people still waiting in that Kafkaesque fly ridden purgatory, waiting to hear what had happened to their passports and whether they would be allowed entry. Many had been there since morning like us. And there was a woman on the bus with us who had been there for 12 hours, with her two young children and her 3 week old baby - imagine dealing with that just 3 weeks after giving birth.
The saddest thing is that this whole frustrating journey is just normal everyday stuff for Palestinian people living in the West Bank, who face much tougher restrictions on movement and far more humiliating treatment on a daily basis. Said's brother works in the next town, and has to commute 3 ½ hours to work – 1hour driving and 2 ½ hours waiting at the checkpoint. One of his sisters lives in Amman. To visit her parents she has to leave the house at 4am, with the kids, to face that border crossing. Her husband, Jordanian, is not allowed to visit Palestine. And Said's family have not seen another of his sisters for 7 years now. She lives in Gaza - the other part of Palestine - and there is no way to travel between the two areas. My mother in law has grandchildren she has never met and will probably never meet.
“They checked everything. They opened every single nappy, including the dirty ones.”
“When we left there were people still waiting in that Kafkaesque fly ridden purgatory, waiting to hear what had happened to their passports.”
“The saddest thing is that this whole frustrating journey is just normal everyday stuff for Palestinian people living in the West Bank.”
We're in. After more than a year we have been allowed back in to Palestine. It has been a long journey - we left the house at dawn and arrived at the Jordanian border control just after 8am. From there its a few minutes drive to the Israeli section of the border, then three and a half hours sat in a sweltering hot bus waiting at the entrance to the border compound. It was 40 degrees C outside, and the stationary bus was like a glasshouse.
Inside the compound, mukhabarat took me to one side as I was going through the x-ray. What followed was 7 hours of waiting and wondering. Said and I were both searched and questioned separately and told not to move from where we were sitting. We spent the whole 7 hours swatting flies away from the baby and our faces. All our bags had been taken away including hand luggage, snacks, water, and the baby's nappy bag. We had to ask 5 or 6 times to get a small glass of water. When Adam's nappy needed changed it took a bit of negotiating just to be allowed one nappy, cotton wool and Vaseline.
We were questioned a few times by different people, but most of the time we were just sat waiting. A lot of the time it felt like we had been forgotten. We kept asking border officials if they knew where our passports were, or why we were waiting. We were told: 'I don't have your passport', 'its not in my office', 'maybe someone else has it', 'you are not my problem', 'just shut up and sit over there', 'you do what we tell you - you don't ask any questions here', 'you are waiting for security reasons so you are not allowed to know about it', and many times someone said 'I'll go and find out' but never came back, or just shrugged when they saw us again.
Some things about the day were frustrating, like seeing a group of 20year-olds holding our passports looking over at us and talking, and ordering us to stay where we were when we began to approach them. Or like watching police open every item of our carefully packed bags, dump everything in boxes and take it away for 'checking'. And I mean everything. They opened new, sealed tubes of toothpaste and moisturiser. They opened every single nappy, including the dirty ones, and dumped them in with the clean clothes. And we realised today that all of Said's socks disappeared, so I guess they are still in Jericho stinking out the x-ray room.
Some things were humiliating. I removed my hijab when asked to in an examination cubicle. And then the young mukhabarat officer pulled back the curtain in front of a queue of 50 or 60 people, and shouted over to a colleague, so lots of people turned to look at us to see what the shouting was about. And, after removing my shoes and hair band so she could check my scalp and the soles of my stockinged feet, I was scrabbling my hair back into a ponytail. The young woman ordered me to pass her my shoes. They were on the floor right in front of her, but she didn't want to bend down to pick them up. I said 'just a second while I tie my hair back' and got shouted at for it - apparently I should do what I am told without delay.
We had organised this trip months in advance. I was refused entry last year, along with so many others. The Right to Enter campaign was set up in response to the recent Israeli denial of entry to most foreigners married to Palestinians and Palestinians with foreign passports. The Right to Enter group has worked tirelessly over the past year to address this apparently systematic removal of articulate Palestinian moderates, and denial of family reunification.
So I followed the new recommendations and arranged my visit in advance through the British Embassy and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I had an email from them saying we should have no problems at the border, and if we did encounter any problems we should call the MFA Situations room. I had a Palestinian sim card and a Jordanian one, but neither had any reception in the border compound, so about 5pm I started asking officials if I could use a phone to call the situations room. I was told 'I'll find out', I don't think so' and finally 'There is no problem, you don't need to call anyone'. So we carried on waiting - what else was there to do?
When we finally got through I could hardly believe it That was 7.30. We were bused to the Palestinian border control and arranged shared taxis from there to my husband's family house. The Jordan-Palestine border has 3 control points - Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian. I am not asking for entry to Israel, I want to visit family in Nablus, but the Israeli border police control entry to the West Bank.
It could have been worse – when we left there were people still waiting in that Kafkaesque fly ridden purgatory, waiting to hear what had happened to their passports and whether they would be allowed entry. Many had been there since morning like us. And there was a woman on the bus with us who had been there for 12 hours, with her two young children and her 3 week old baby - imagine dealing with that just 3 weeks after giving birth.
The saddest thing is that this whole frustrating journey is just normal everyday stuff for Palestinian people living in the West Bank, who face much tougher restrictions on movement and far more humiliating treatment on a daily basis. Said's brother works in the next town, and has to commute 3 ½ hours to work – 1hour driving and 2 ½ hours waiting at the checkpoint. One of his sisters lives in Amman. To visit her parents she has to leave the house at 4am, with the kids, to face that border crossing. Her husband, Jordanian, is not allowed to visit Palestine. And Said's family have not seen another of his sisters for 7 years now. She lives in Gaza - the other part of Palestine - and there is no way to travel between the two areas. My mother in law has grandchildren she has never met and will probably never meet.
xen hasan
e-mail:
xenhasan@yahoo.co.uk
