Sheikh Saed, Silwan

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Observers: 
Dafna S., Anat T. (reporting )
Mar-3-2015
|
Morning

  

 

 

 

For Purim: Checkpoint  Sheikh Sa'ed dressed up as an upgraded checkpoint, and    border police  in A-Tur dress up as battle force in the Gaza strip.

 

7:00 a.m. Sheikh Saed

 

There is still no passage through the "upgraded" structure.  The passage is through the "carousels" on the side. But in fact,  there are no complaints about procedure through the checkpoint  this morning.  The soldiers are    in their booth and people pass through without being stopped.  Amazing that even when the soldiers are not asking for documents, there are people passing through the checkpoint  who go over to the soldiers'  booth to show their documents. This is clear evidence of their lack of self confidence.

 

In the meantime as part of the "upgrading" of the checkpoint, there is a newly built metal electric gate at the top of the hill, which will enable the passage of cars (Unfortunately these will all be military vehicles.  We have never seen a private car or an ambulance crossing over the checkpoint.)  Another metal gate has been built in the middle of the road leading up to Sheik Saad Hill.

 

The American Road, Silwan and Wadi Jos.

Massive traffic jams from Silwan to the Rockfeller Museum.  No checkpoints or security officers until the Mount of Olives crossing – there we saw quite a few.

 

The Olive Route opposite the schools and the Mokasad

 

Two border police vehicles and two more teams in the street itself, opposite the schools.  The pictures speak for themselves: Border Police lined up in military formation: two facing the street – helmets and weapons and frozen expressions on their faces – and another one facing the alley, covering them from the back, weapon drawn.  They look completely posed  for battle.  Well, who is going to dare to throw a rock, everything so tense, so sad on the way to school.  At the entrance to  the boys school (seventh to twelfth grade) stand the headmaster, two teachers and the chairman of the parents committee of the Atur schools.  The headmaster tells us that the day before military security disguised as Arabs -- מסתערבים  – tried to break into the school and enter the classrooms in order to take into custody  boys accused of throwing stones at the border police. (They claimed to have material about this on U-Tube but I did not find any).  The only way to prevent this was the headmaster and his assistant stopping them bodily.  Every day something like this occurs, ostensibly to secure the Olive Route for the tourists.  But of course this kind of presence only makes for trouble.  Pupils who have not thrown stones are taken into custody and if a teacher intervenes, he is beaten up. And these are schools belonging to the Jerusalem Municipality!

We asked them again to take photographs  with their telephones during these events and upload them to U-tube.  We spoke to the journalist Nir Chason who asked for visual material and will consider writing about this (we sent the morning's photos).  We tried to speak with Uri Agnon who  is in charge of  protest action in the area, but we were not successful.

 

We recommend getting there in the morning as well, from about 7:30 to  8:20; and perhaps even more important, at the end of the school day, at about 14:00.