Waiting in line becomes full-time job in the West Bank (Feature)

By Claas Relotius Jul 16, 2010, 3:06 GMT

Bethlehem, West Bank - 'We wait here like animals,' Khalid Arouri complains, tossing his cigarette stub against the imposing, eight-metre-tall border wall.

It is 5 am and the sun is just rising over Bethlehem. Already, the Palestinian man's neck veins are bulging with anger.

The 43-year-old migrant worker from the West Bank is in a hurry. His job in Jerusalem starts in less than three hours and he can not be late. Yet, the line of people in front of him is not budging.

At Checkpoint 300 between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, this is part of everyday life. The border crossing is part of the fence erected by Israel in 2003 in response to a wave of suicide bombing attacks.

Every day, 28,000 Palestinians cross over from the West Bank to Israel to go to work, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

In Bethlehem alone, 3,000 workers pass through the strict security checkpoint.

'How long it takes depends mostly on the mood the soldiers are in,' Arouri says. 'Sometimes you get through in one hour, and sometimes it takes six.'

As he speaks, more than 100 men with red-rimmed eyes try to get some sleep on flattened cardboard boxes all around him. Like Arouri, they arrived at the fence in the middle of the night - to be the first when the checkpoint opens at 5 am.

'The earlier, the better. I've been late to work a couple of times because of checkpoints,' Arouri said. 'But that's no excuse, as far as my boss is concerned. If it happens one more time, he'll send me right back home and tell me not to bother coming back.'

Arouri has three daughters and lives in the town of Beit Jala outside Bethlehem. He works at a computer company in Jerusalem, earning 240 shekels, about 60 dollars, a day.

'That's just about enough to feed my family. But it's still four times what I would get in Palestine. That's the way it is with most of us here,' he says.

The border checkpoint finally opens at 6 am, an hour late. Arouri is among the first 300 or so who worm their way through the turnstiles.

First, they go through one metal detection device. Across a courtyard, there is another checkpoint with a second metal detector, which involves another long wait.

'Going through the checkpoint day in and day out is so stressful that it's like having a second job,' Arouri says. 'I only get about half as much sleep as I did before the checkpoints were implemented. A lot of the time, I am exhausted before I even get to work, without having earned a single shekel.'

By the time Arouri gets through the second checkpoint, it is already 7 am.

Next, the men are herded into small groups through a caged-in passage. Despite fans, the men are soaked in perspiration. There is no place to sit, not even benches.

At prayer time, men kneel on the dusty asphalt. Surveillance cameras are trained on them.

'The way they treat us antagonizes many Palestinians,' Arouri says. 'But you can't let it get to you. If you lose your temper and start banging against the bars, the soldiers send you back to the end of the line.'

Finally at the head of the line, Arouri must show his work permit and his fingerprints are checked for identification purposes.

At 8 am, four hours after he arrived at the Bethlehem checkpoint, Arouri makes it through to the other side of the wall.

But he will not spend much time there.

'I have to be back here by 6 pm,' he says. 'That's when they close the checkpoint.'