Morning

we approached "the wall" from the west. At the tower there was one border policeman, yelling at students not to pass through the field and reporting "suspicious" people to the rest of his team. Three more soldiers were on the path half way between the mosque and the gas station. There are no more building block stairs through the mosque, just a pile of rubble that people pass over.The checkpoint was not tense but the soldiers checked everyone, even the old ladies. Only people with "tasrich" (permit)were allowed to pass, not even teachers with teacher cards were allowed through. One of the soldiers, I think it was the commander of the shift, seemed to be an arabic speaker (maybe druze), but he did not speak in arabic to the Palestinians...he tried to be polite most of the time, but in Hebrew.One man with a suitcase coming from Ras el Amud, upset the guard in the tower.he was delayed for a while and when the soldiers suggested to hassle him some more, the commander said "he does not do things like that".