From Qalandiya to Jerusalem
By: Katie Schuessler
Tags: Israel, Palestine, Human Rights, Borders

Entering back into Israel from the West Bank was never easy, but the first time I did it was especially painful.

Children selling CDs by the wall at Qalandiya checkpoint near Jerusalem. Photo by Katie Schuessler.

Trigger warning: this post contains violent imagery.

Walking toward the entrance to Qalandiya checkpoint, I shielded my eyes from the morning sun, trying to act normal — as if I’d done this a million times before.

My colleagues and I lined up single-file behind a few dozen Palestinians and I watched as, one by one, they went through a grated rotating door into the unknown. One man was walking through when the soldiers abruptly locked the rotation mechanism while he was mid-stride, and the poor guy all but slammed his head into the metal bars.

My friends, however, passed to the other side unscathed.

When it was my turn, I pushed my way through that heavy door, the metal cool against my trembling fingers. My eyes adjusted to the dim space and I scanned the room for the source of a loud hum. I discovered a conveyer belt in front of me that resembled something like that of an airport security checkpoint, except that it was rickety, corroded, and the source of that unsettling sound. I took off my jewelry, stuffed it into the side pocket of my bag, and set it on the belt before walking through a grimy-looking metal detector.

Two young girls, probably eighteen or nineteen and just starting their required military stint, were sitting behind bulletproof glass to my left. One of them beckoned me over, and I approached her window. She had blonde curly hair that fell across her green uniform, smeared black eyeliner, and a look of mild annoyance on her face — as if this was the last thing she had time for.

I held my passport up to the window, pressing it against the glass so she could see my picture. Then I turned to the visa page and held it up again. She looked at me with disgust, but said nothing. I glared back, and for a moment, we simply stared at one another, locked in a standoff. Finally, I cocked my head in a gesture of impatience, some latent instinct bubbling up from within: maybe if I made the first move, I would win. She hesitated for a beat, but then, with a flick of her hand, permitted me to continue. For just an instant I froze, stunned by the small, delicate fingers that possessed so much power.

My bag was waiting for me on the other side of the x-ray machine, but the strap was caught in the rotating mechanism that brought the belt back around to the front. I reached down to free the strap, and before I knew it, the conveyor belt had sucked my hand into its rotation. First my fingers, then my knuckles, were caught and pulled down until the flesh of my hand was too thick to go any farther. The belt continued rotating and rubbing against my skin with fierce, unyielding pressure. It was a machine without awareness, simply moving through its repetitive motions.

I cried out and looked back at the two Israeli women, but they didn’t hear me through the glass and the noise of the machine. The Palestinian man behind me, also cleared to pass through, yelled sharply to catch their attention. The blonde woman looked first at me, then at her colleague, startled. The machine came to a sudden, silent stop.

Gingerly, the man lifted my hand up and out from the belt, an especially kind gesture in light of the social and religious taboos against men and women making physical contact. But before I could thank him, the noisy machine was back on, doing its job.

I looked back at the girls behind the glass for some kind of recognition, even just a moment of acknowledgment, but it was as if nothing had happened. They were already ushering the next people through, ignoring us. I grabbed my bag and exited through another metal revolving door.

I was in Israel.

I stood in the sun, shocked. I looked around for the man who had helped me, but he was gone. My hand was raw and tender. Layers of skin had come off in a sudden burn, but nothing was bleeding yet. I bent my elbow to raise my hand upward and held it still, unsure of what to do: would letting it hang down make it worse? It didn’t look as bad as it felt. I probably just needed some antiseptic and a few band-aids. Maybe there were some at our destination, which was the office for the Israeli Coalition Against Housing Demolition (ICAHD). Maybe we would have time to stop at a market, and I could grab some first aid supplies.

One of my colleagues, a brilliant lawyer from the Netherlands, was outraged as we climbed into a tiny bus: “This would never happen in a place where people actually care about other human beings,” she scoffed. I took solace in this crumb of comfort and sighed.

I felt a familiar pang — just a sliver. Like when, as a kid, I’d been punched hard in the gut with no recourse.

There’s no frustration like that of experiencing repeated injustice.

I squeezed into the back of our small bus between a man from Vermont and a woman from the UK. We made small talk, and I managed to participate, but there was a haze over my eyes. I was shaking.