It was a long, slow-moving bus ride to cross the King Hussein Bridge, but the most stressful thing is the Israeli interrogation that people go through to get into the West Bank. My friend and I practiced our story of why we were returning for another three months so soon after we were already here. However much I practiced answers to any question they might ask, it is still nerve-wracking to be in that position. Thankfully and miraculously we had an easy time getting in, despite my friend being detained several times last spring. It just goes to show that despite seeming all-powerful, Israel is unraveling. There are too many moving parts made up of egotistical unorganized people that don’t communicate.
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From the border we took a bus to Al Quds (Jerusalem) to get a new SIM card for our phones, then took a bus to the Qalandia Checkpoint. On the way we were stopped and an IOF soldier who entered the bus and looked at all our passports, machine gun at his side. Once we got to the Qalandia Checkpoint, we walked through the crowded space and entered the northern region where we then flagged a serveece bus to get us to Ramallah. Nothing is straightforward or easy in apartheid. What would have taken half an hour for an Israeli took us the entire day.
I was going to go south to Masafer Yatta today, but there was a lot of unexpected work to do here. It is good to connect with friends in the city, though. I was also able to meet some new volunteers, which was helpful to assess what has changed on the ground since I left. Things have escalated, yes, but it seems like the biggest shift is within the organization’s culture. On one hand it is amazing that we have grown so much in the last few months, but with that come a lot of growing pains. There is a lot of work to be done.
