"I have been waiting at the checkpoint for about five hours," complains Anas Ahmed. "This is a waste of time, we have work," he says, stuck in traffic at a gate manned by the Israeli army near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah. Ahead and behind his car, hundreds of other Palestinian vehicles who drove through the university town of Birzeit in the hope of an easy passage stand idle as they wait for soldiers to allow them through the usually open road. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES