The tear gas was fired in volleys, and hung in the air even after the white clouds disappeared.
It affected everyone.
Here is one of the photos posted on Facebook by Tamar Fleishman of Machsom [Checkpoint] Watch:
Qalandia is a stressful, ugly, terrible cul-de-sac where one road, with one lane in each direction, heading towards or around the Qalandia military checkpoint (which itself is located at the end of an airstrip built during the British-administered Mandate of Palestine, then used as a civilian airport for Palestinian travel during the period of Jordanian rule, until June 1967.) There is no way to adequately describe the stress, tension, frustration, and anxiety that anyone feels passing though Qalandia. You simply never know what will happen. And, it could be bad. That’s on a normal day.
By my own eyewitness estimate, there were not more than 150 protesters — probably half were traditional Palestinian politicians from leftist groups or their own organizations, and a small sprinkling of Hamas, while the rest from the loose coalition of Manara Youth and some Israeli and international activists, who marched down from a gathering point to the Qalandia Checkpoint. I am told that one busload of people from Hebron and another few groups from other areas assembled just to the south of the Qalandia checkpoint and met up with those who left from the Yaffa supermarket. That makes at most, at the very generous most, some 300 demonstrators who were there because they intended to join the protest. [There were at least as many onlookers, and there were a few ad hoc participants who joined in doing what they know best — throwing stones, despite the extensive efforts of the organizers to stop this…]
This is what happened when the original group arrived down at the checkpoint just before noon – video by Omar Robert Hamilton:
And, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported, 120 people were treated for injuries from tear gas, pepper spray, “sewage water” or “skunk spray” and rubber bullets…
Many dozens of others recovered without medical attention.