October 16, 2014

The supervision over the people arriving at the checkpoint, over the thousands of families living in Qalandiya refugee camp and over the tens of businesses on the main road between Ramallah and East Jerusalem is tightening, and the asymmetry between the soldiers who are armed with rifles and grenades and the boys and teenagers who throw at them stones and Molotov Bottles or roll over burning tires, is growing.

After the murder of the two teenagers in Beitunia by a bored soldier and the abduction of the Muhammad Abu-Khdeir, the boy who was burnt alive, the winds in Palestine and East Jerusalem began to stir and the youngsters began holding protests more often, additional surveillance cameras were installed on the top of the tower overlooking the refugee camp and next to them were placed projectors which during all hours of the day light both the public and the privet sphere with an intrusive bright green light.

This additional equipment does not only serve for surveillance and harassment, for it is also used to destabilize the sense of security that a person has within the four walls of his home.
It is all done purposely or as they say in the military "in order to create a sense of persecution among the residents".

Aside for what was installed on top of the pillbox, three posts had been added on the wall only tens of meters apart from each other, and they reign over the path that is used by the protesting youngsters on their way to the checkpoint entrance.

The new posts that are used for observations and sniping had been placed on the back of the wall, only one of them, which is extremely close to the Palestinian houses, can also be seen on the inner side of the wall and it is covered with a net that protects the soldiers from stones and Molotov bottles.

The location of the two others can be identified by the hooks on the top of the wall.

The posts on the back side of the apartheid wall look like hanging cages, or as a Palestinian friend described it: "they built scaffolds to the top, you know, scaffolds like the ones they use on construction sites, and that’s how they reach the top and from there they watch and from there they also shoot".

And when everything can be seen and there is footage of everything and everything is known and there is no need for human contact and the bodies don’t touch and the other is nothing but a target in the rifle scope, it may be that the remote control weapons used on the residents of the Gaza strip, will be brought over here.

(Translated by Ruth Fleishman.)

- As a member of Machsomwatch, once a week Tamar Fleishman heads out to document the checkpoints between Jerusalem and Ramallah. This documentation (reports, photos and videos) can be found on the organization’s site: www.machsomwatch.org. The majority of the Spotlights (an opinion page) that are published on the site had been written by her. She is also a member of the Coalition of Women for Peace and volunteer in Breaking the Silence.



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