'Anata-Shu'afat, Container (Wadi Nar) Al Ezariya

We arrived at Anata as the school buses were transferring the children to the area.  For whatever reason, there was a huge line of vehicles going into the area behind the separation wall.  The traffic was blocked up well into the road leading from French Hill to Pisgat Zeev.  As a result, the school buses could not let out the children in the usual place and the already dangerous situation of hundreds (maybe thousands) of children disembarking with no guards was even worse.  We had somehow managed to get into the parking lot which seems not to have been cleaned in weeks.  Opposite us was a huge dump which was set afire as we left, spreading dangerous fumes throughout the area.  And this is all within municipal Jerusalem on the Jewish side of the wall!

From one traffic jam to another.  The roads in Al Ezariya are under repair and as a result, traffic was diverted to the opposite side of the road.  There seemed to have been an unusually amount of traffic, but perhaps the cause was the road under repair.

At Wadi Nar a major reconstruction of the checkpoint is underway.  Apparently, from what we were told by one of the workmen, the plan is to construct a full scale border crossing, like that on 443 and on the road to Maaleh Adumim. After a waiting period (which has long since passed), he would once again be able to gain entry into Israel.  I told him to prepare all the information and turn to Sylvia Piterman.