Embarking in the dark

It is dark outside his family’s three-story home in Hebron when we arrive to follow Taweel on his daily commute.

Although it might take him three or four hours to get to his construction site in East Jerusalem, the entire trip is only 20 miles as the crow flies.

His uncles, brothers and their families live in the kind of extended family compound many Palestinians prefer. A little after 4 a.m., the first lamps appear in the windows, just for a minute, switched on, then off, as if someone is looking for a lost boot and doesn’t want to wake everyone inside.

One of his uncles comes out to offer a cup of coffee. “We leave in the dark and return in the dark,” he said.

“It’s unnatural.”

Taweel has a high school diploma and a handsome face that is hard to read. He’s got hazel eyes, square shoulders and an athletic build.

He is recently married, and when we see him away from the checkpoint, with his family, he doesn’t look anxious, but alive with pleasure. Nine months ago, his wife gave birth to a chubby-cheeked boy they dress in cute little track suits.

Taweel is skilled at stonework, drywall and plaster. His competence got him a job.

But it was his baby that got him his permit.

Israel is closed to Palestinians without travel or work permits, except for residents of East Jerusalem, who have a special status. Palestinian women over 50 and men over 55 may enter for a day without a permit from the West Bank, if the checkpoints are open. All Palestinians living in Gaza need special permission.

Construction workers from the West Bank who seek permits must generally be at least 23 years old, married, and have a child, so Taweel could not get an Israeli work permit until his son was born.

Tarek Al Taweel, 30, lives in Hebron in the West Bank with his wife, Iman, and their 9-month old son, Azem. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

Today there are more than a hundred kinds of permits issued by the Israeli military authority for movement.

A permit to travel or study abroad, pray at the Jerusalem holy sites, visit relatives, attend a wedding or funeral, get medical treatment and work on the other side of the separation barrier.

To get out of Gaza — which is under the control of the Islamist militant movement Hamas, a terrorist organization — is even harder. Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 but still maintains a land, sea and air blockade with restrictions on travel and trade. No Palestinians from Gaza commute to work in Israel.

Taweel’s work permit allows him to enter Israel in the early morning, but he must leave by the end of the day.

The Israeli intelligence officers assume that family men like Taweel are not only less likely to carry out terrorist attacks, but less likely to commit any crimes — such as smuggling or spending the night in Israel — for fear of losing their permit.

Around 4:20 a.m., Taweel and six co-workers walk to the end of their street and pile into a van for the ride to Bethlehem. Everyone but the driver immediately nods off.

Taweel said, “More sleep is a blessing.”

A worker arrives early in the morning on April 9 to build homes for Israelis in Jerusalem after crossing Checkpoint 300. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

Heading north on two-lane Highway 60, they pass the Palestinian town of Saer, home to many construction workers and also a dozen of the young stabbers and car-rammers in last year’s wave of violence, which left 35 Israelis dead.

Across the highway is Kiryat Arba, the Jewish settlement infamous as the home to the American-born physician Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Muslim worshipers with a machine gun at the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994.

Taweel’s van speeds toward a crossing called Checkpoint 300, or Checkpoint Rachel, because it abuts the Tomb of Rachel, the biblical matriarch, a shrine sacred to Muslims and Christians and considered one of the holiest for Jews.

Checkpoint 300 passes through Israel’s high concrete walls, tagged with Palestinian graffiti and Banksy murals, erected during the second intifada, or uprising, in the early 2000s, when Palestinian suicide bombers were targeting Israeli civilians.

The crossing today is the scene of frequent clashes between young Palestinians throwing rocks and burning tires, and young Israeli soldiers who fire tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition.

Into the scrum

It’s now almost 5 a.m. Bethlehem is asleep, only the bakeries are bright. But as the convoys of taxis, vans and buses reach the checkpoint, men stir and rush toward Israel’s separation barrier, here a 26-foot-tall cement wall with watch towers.

There are already swelling crowds. It’s a Sunday, busiest day of the week, with thousands of men shoving forward, squirming under fluorescent bulbs.

Younger workers scale the walls of the "cages" to cut in line and get to work faster. (Sufian Taha/The Washington Post)

Taweel was not ready to risk the crush. He is perched above the entrance to the checkpoint on the Bethlehem side, squatting on his heels, elevated on the rubble of an old stone wall, watching the shoving match below.

“It’s too crazy,” he said. “Let’s wait.”

Taweel saw his impatient uncles and brothers shoulder first into the scrum, followed by his father. They pushed on the back of the man in front. His father smiled weakly up at his eldest son through the bars. Father and son looked sad.

Later, Taweel explained that they were ashamed that a foreigner had come to watch such a spectacle.

A few years earlier, Taweel’s father suffered cracked ribs, when he was crushed at the checkpoint. An uncle with high blood pressure once fainted and had to be rescued. During our visit to the checkpoint, one man had a heart attack and another with asthma collapsed.

“You never, ever want to fall down,” Taweel warned.

There are now 70,000 Palestinians working legally in Israel, most of them in construction, plus an additional 30,000 to 50,000 working without permits, who scramble through drainage pipes and scale walls with grappling hooks and handmade ladders, to enter Israel.

There’s no panic this morning. Real panic is rare. But you could see easily how it could happen, like a stampede at a rock concert or a soccer stadium.

It looks a little scary, we said.

“It is scary,” Taweel said.

There are 13 major crossings that allow Palestinians with work permits like Taweel’s to enter Israel. Palestinians will argue which checkpoint is the slowest, fastest, the most crowded, the easiest, with the rudest or most professional soldiers or private security, and the most vile toilets.

Some crossings have vastly improved. But Palestinians say Checkpoint 300 is still one of the worst.

Thousands of workers from all over the southern West Bank must squeeze through each morning. There are no real alternatives. If you’re from Hebron and work in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, it is the straightest line.

As we watched the crush, the Palestinians we asked conjured fantastical words in Arabic to describe the experience to come.

First the workers say they’re funneled into “cages,” the long barred passageways, then jammed into “chicken pluckers,” the clicking turnstiles. Then they pass through the “aquariums,” where the bored Israeli soldiers sit behind thick bulletproof glass, matching green IDs to faces.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to see the meanings behind the metaphors. The Palestinians say the words all describe animals in a zoo.

The crowds were thinning a bit. The line was moving.

After about 30 minutes, Taweel said, “Let’s go.”