Jericho line.. the container.. Wadi al-Nar... and vice versa.

There are words as soon as they touch the ears of the Palestinian, until his body shudders from the torment he endured.. and he will suffer if he needs to travel a few kilometers from his work center in the "temporary capital" Ramallah, where the factions are, to the south of the West Bank. Through the container and the valley of fire, or from the Jericho border crossings.

The "Container" checkpoint is located in the middle of the distance between the north and center of the West Bank and its south, and it has a military post. On the opposite sidewalk, you often see young Palestinians who are ordered to kneel on their knees, with their hands above their heads, without anyone knowing why? And for how long? In front of them, the soldiers of the Defense Army or the Border Guard, whose leadership devolved to the Minister, "Al-Dhahira" Bin Ghfir, are watching, laughing and joking, happy with the scene, which often ends with a sentence of two words .. "God bless you" or the word "Sa'a".

There are days when young men are not ordered to get on their knees, but when the officers and soldiers of the checkpoint decide to search a car or several cars, you will find yourself in a line of cars that is several kilometers long, carrying thousands of people of different ages, and in waiting for an unknown length, it is not surprising that a patient dies Or a child is born, and if a taxi or private car driver is forced to alert the checkpoint men by sounding the “car horn” so that everyone will be punished for disturbing the soldiers. The waiting time doubles, and the queue of cars lengthens for additional kilometers. The horn is a form of protest - this is how the soldiers consider it -! This does not happen every day, but when there is no search or removal of young men to perform the duty of kneeling with their faces to the wall, the ritual of changing the guard takes place. What leads to paralysis in traffic, back and forth, begins with a signal from the soldier's hand and ends with the word "Sa'a", so that the souls of drivers and passengers feel relieved, just by hearing the magic word that equals a sigh of relief.

And if the travelers’ fortune is good, that is, at a time when there is no inspection, and there is no change of guards, which makes them expect a smooth passage until they are surprised, and this is what happens after the “container” leaves the travelers to the rest of the country, as well as before it reaches the arrivals, with a crowd that is worse, more painful and longer than any other torture. Familiar crowds, when the settlement of "Ma'aleh Adumim" participates in the state's celebrations and Haredi parties, and according to the calendar, there is no month without celebration, and in order for the celebrants not to be disturbed by the clamor of the "terrorist" Palestinian travelers, the roads are closed, and the crossing of the town of Abu Dis, which Trump appointed as the capital of Palestine, becomes We need a kilometer-long queue of cars, and a time when each meter takes half an hour to cut through, but when thousands converge to pray at Al-Aqsa every Friday and Eid, then there is nothing wrong with that!

Let us assume that the container checkpoint is tired of abusing the passers-by and gives itself a leave to rest for a while. There are checkpoints that have a magical ability to make the other line of Palestinians suffocate before and after the container. It is closed, and with the first minute of the barrier’s presence and for an unknown time, it becomes completely paralyzed, and the only lung of the bank to breathe, along with the second lung “Jordan” suffers deathly suffocation. At the mouth of the container, the soldiers at the checkpoint exercise their hobby of watching thousands of cars and tens of thousands of passengers. The soldiers feel comfortable because their "colleague" at the Jericho checkpoint has done the duty and more.

“Container” is the most tragic word repeated by the Palestinians, who must be cut off in order to move from the north and center of the West Bank to the south of it. Some of them travel daily from the temporary capital in which they work, and some of them sleep in their cars due to fatigue and boredom, the cold of winter and the heat of summer, and the phenomenon that has no solution. It is that in this kind of torture, there is no way for the detainee to leave in the car to anywhere, and there is no way for the drivers to return from whence they came!

This is not all in terms of the agony of moving from one place to another. Generations in Gaza do not know anything about what is happening behind Erez and Rafah, and in the northern West Bank, the people of Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm and others do not know what is going on behind Hawara. In the whole country, all people live as if They are inside a steel container without doors or windows, similar to Ghassan Kanafani's tank, but this time the size of a country and people, a tank of six thousand square kilometers, and millions of detainees inhabited.

Was the one who named the valley of fire before and after the container predicting or by mere coincidence? In any case, the name is appropriate.

Does the world know about all this or even some of it? Let us ask our politicians who are mired in their own agendas, and if there is room left, let us ask the dozens of our embassies spread all over the world!! Titled "For the cause"!!!