RAMALLAH: “Get the hell back if you don’t want to get hurt,” an Israeli soldier shouts through a megaphone at a group of Palestinians gathered at the Qalandia checkpoint, between Al Quds and Palestinian controlled Ramallah. The men and women who are trying to get through quickly obey the order: they know that the soldiers these days only need the slightest of reasons to fire teargas or shoot in the air, or worse.

“They shot over my head when I tried to approach the checkpoint in my car,” says Muna Khleifi. She lives in Ramallah and went early in the morning to see her doctor in Al Quds. “They let me through because I had a medical certificate but now they won’t let me go back. I cannot even get near them to explain my situation. My husband and children are in Ramallah, what am I going to do?”

The soldiers at the countless checkpoints surrounding Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank have become noticeably more cautious, not to say jumpy, since a spate of lethal attacks last week. Earlier this week, two pregnant women were shot within two days at the same roadblock in Nablus.

The husband of one of them was killed. At Qalandia, soldiers even fired at the car of the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Ahmed Qrei’a, who is involved in peace negotiations. Israeli Foreign Minister Peres apologised and assured Qrei’a that nobody wanted to shoot at him.

Human rights organizations have been complaining about the often-lethal incidents at the roadblocks from the very beginning of the intifada. “The situations now has become totally insufferable, though,” says Mustafa Barghouti, the head of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees. “Until last week, most of the checkpoints were open, meaning they could be approached. Now they have become closed, which means they shoot if you come too close without their specific permission.”

That is what probably happened in the case of the pregnant women, Barghouti explains. Their families were taking them to the hospital. “They didn’t have a choice but to approach the soldiers and explain what their situation was. They were in a hurry and had to use a car but the soldiers shoot at anything that comes near.”

He calls the situation unprecedented and says it shows the failure of the Israeli policies. “If the soldiers get nervous they should finally realise that it is time to get out and end the occupation. This way they only create more hatred.” Soldiers at Qalandia made people wanting to cross to either side take off their coats and turn slowly around to show they were not carrying arms or explosives. —Dawn/InterPress Service.