"The Valley of Fire" and "The Container" .. Stories from the womb of the abuse of the Palestinians

Fadi the stick - Bethlehem

"I'm in a state of extreme depression, and I often do not like going out of the house," he said. Bilal, who works on a public vehicle between Bethlehem and Ramallah in the West Bank, started talking about his movements on the road between the two cities.

Bilal comes out on many days of the week at 4:00 am to transfer people from Bethlehem to East Jerusalem or Ramallah through the twisted "Wad al-Nar" road that ends at the famous "Container" barrier between the Palestinians.

Bilal describes the road as eating from his body. Speaking through a twisted and dangerous road, which extends three kilometers, and if he manages to go beyond a traffic accident, Bilal will surprise him with a search that might force him to stay throughout the day and waste his day.

The driver told Al-Jazeera Net that "this only route from Bethlehem to Ramallah is in good condition in about an hour. If a traffic accident occurs or a checkpoint appears, soldiers may stop for five hours."

"One day the checkpoint saw a lot of traffic. The vehicles ran all the way in both directions, and then it turned out that this was caused by a soldier from the Israeli army who took him (Silfi) and commented that he could stop Palestinian vehicles and detain people with a single sign," says one passenger on the bus.

The driver of another private vehicle, who refused to be named, told the driver that one day, four young men were in a vehicle in front of him. The soldier took one of them, provoked him and took him to an area hidden from view and surveillance cameras, and then beat him with another female soldier. Cause, for entertainment only ".

22 thousand vehicles
The alternative to solving this dilemma, says the mayor of the Obeidiya east of Bethlehem Naji Ridida, which is a large part of the path of "valley of fire" in its territory, this road was only for emergencies.

He added to Al-Jazeera Net that a limited number of vehicles were traveling from East Bethlehem to East Jerusalem, because the main road is Bethlehem / Jerusalem / Ramallah, which does not need more than 20 minutes.

However, the closure of the occupation of the city of Jerusalem and the barriers and the separation wall, forced the citizens to deal with this difficult road, which no matter how we have made adjustments, they remain dangerous, a road from the bottom of the valley to the top of the mountain forced at the intersection to be twisted so you can walk.

He continued to say that they conducted a statistical study showed that about 22 thousand vehicles cut the road daily from the south of the West Bank to the center and vice versa, and this is a huge number of the road does not already accommodate a third of this number at best, there are parts of the road does not exceed the width in both directions from five meters. "Is this a major road linking Palestine to each other?" He asked.

Two difficult options
In the municipality and even in the Palestinian Ministry of Local Government, he sees two difficult options. Is this road fixed, paved, expanded, and made easier for people? Or help the occupation in creating a new reality that he wants as a substitute for occupied Jerusalem, and therefore the Palestinian is no longer moving between the West Bank and Jerusalem.

He added that the difficulty of the road and the barrier lies at the end, means stopping the vehicles, which may extend congestion along five kilometers, which disrupts the interests of people, and any traffic accident may stop the road, although there are no alternative routes.

He said that the "Container" checkpoint is one of the 700 checkpoints in the West Bank, one of the most dangerous checkpoints to be built on Palestinians.