The Long Road to Ramallah

The people frantically ran but I tried to walk calmly so as not to loose my place after waiting for an hour... I ended up inhaling too much tear gas and almost lost my breath

By Nizar Farsakh

I had to go Bethlehem one way or the other, so early morning I went to the checkpoint and there was a long line.. it was 7:00 a.m. and the israeli soldiers were letting people in one by one very slowly...

I waited in line for half an hour when new people started going out of the line and stood in front of the earth mound next to the start of the line... as much as we protested to them that they should stay in line, they did not listen. They said that they had been trying to get to Ramallah from another place since 5:00 a.m. but the Israeli soldiers were firing at them, so they weren't willing to wait two more hours in a new line.. anyway, the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint kept threatening those who were not standing in line that they will shoot at them.

So those people would go back for a while only to come back to the front again, and the soldiers threatening again, and so on and so forth, until the soldiers did throw a shock bomb (only sound) so the people dispersed and the line got disorganized, but I managed to keep pretty much the same place I was in.