On our way to Sderot, with our Israeli and Palestinian guides, our bus was detained at the checkpoint--for the first and hopefully only time. We were all made to get off the bus which was scoured top to bottom by one of the IDF members on duty at the checkpoint. Each of us had to form a line; show our documents/passports; go through a screening with all our bags; leave through a different door and have no contact with our group members who had not yet passed through.
We were anxious about our guides--whose documents were actually taken from them and worried that, though he had permits, our Palestinian guide would be refused the right to continue.
All turned out well...though it set us back an hour or more from our next stop at Sderot--at the edge of the Gaza strip. We made it in time for sunset--missing by a day on each side, missile exchanges in the ongoing tense relationship.
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