Abu Dis, Sheikh Saed, Mon 26.10.09, Afternoon

2:00-5:30 PM

Anat accompanied us in an effort to try and find out how to improve MW involvement in this area. It was suggested the topic would be discussed at the upcoming meeting of MW.

We glimpsed at the ‘numbered’ street sign (nr. 8070; temporary name) in the settlement of Nof Zion within Jabel Mukaber. Some girls were still lingering near the school, but we saw no school busses or transits.
 
As usual there were hardly any people near the Sheikh Saed CP. The scooter ambulance was parked at the bottom. Some men at the top wanted to know how to get in touch with Sylvia.

A civilian guard told us what a bad impression we make all over the world and how we are doing the work of the Hamas and helping them. He could not understand our role of ‘occupiers’ and told us how disgusted he was by us and by what we are doing. His colleague tried to dissuade him from talking to us.

A man told us that an elderly lady who visited her daughter in Sheikh Saed had been allowed to enter via the CP in the morning, but had been told to return via the Olive Passage at night a long expensive trip. Only some understanding border policemen allow these people to return the way they came in. These are the regulations.

We drove via Silwan and noted the amount of soldiers guarding the tractors working for the excavations. There were some rocks scattered on the street, in memory of yesterday’s trouble, but it was quiet. The construction of the extension of the Mt. of Olives Settlement is growing fast.

We drove up to the hotel which has become a ruin and looked deserted; no soldiers could be spotted, so we opened the unlocked gate and proceeded to have a look at the Kidmat Zion settlement. Its once enormous flag is torn to bits and half of the place looked empty. On the way back we were told off for entering illegally and had apparently been photographed by two soldiers who all of a sudden appeared out from nowhere.
 

We were more than surprised to find the PishPash CP dismantled. There is a sign that only security vehicles can enter, but the cars of the store-owners and residents entered freely. The place still looks a horrible mess with rubble all over. We talked to a smith who was extremely happy and said that the ‘engineer’ had promised that the road and all the destroyed surroundings would be fixed. However, he has not much work, because most his former clients are on the other side of the wall and can no longer reach him.

The wall is now (almost) in place about two hundred yards further down. It runs along one of the houses in such a way that the upstairs balconies (enclosed by metal netting) stick out to the East over the wall. A tiny blue door half-way up one of the concrete slabs (reachable via a mound of rubble) is opened twice a day at 8:00 AM and at noon to let the toddlers who attend the nursery school in the Convent of the Sisters of Nigrizia, through. Needless to say that their parents and teachers are not allowed to use this passage and have to go around all the way via the Olive Passage. See write-up and U-tube about this unbelievable situation:

On the way we met a couple of women. One showed us her little grandson (now approximately four years old), who was born in Hebron and living in Jerusalem without a birth certificate. Another woman showed us the house she was living in on the western side of the wall despite the fact that she is in possession of a Palestinian Id. She is virtually imprisoned and hardly dares leave the house. Anat promised them to find out how they could be helped.

It was almost getting dark and we didn’t want to continue to the Container and decided instead to visit the expelled families in Sheikh Jarrah. The place was full of police, all high-ranking officers. They didn’t want to talk to us, but a man from the Alternative Information Center explained to us that the Rabbis for Human Rights had come with a few Internationals to pay a solidarity visit and since they were standing in the middle of the street three were brutally arrested. Two were Israelis, Yehiel and Lea, the third a female German diplomat who was dragged off upside down and thrown into the police van. Some remaining internationals were dividing up shifts to stay with the families in the tent overnight. On our way out we saw a group of youngsters who looked as if they were on their way to start throwing stones; we drove off.