Morning

In the general political situation no special events got reported. (Sharon is outoside the country). -We arrived at the Abu Dis checkpoint at 6:45 a.m. 11 Palestinian men were squatting before the wall, their backs turned to the public and their faces to the barriers. Two Border Policemen were checking some Palestinian people, two others were guarding the scene, one from above a roof, one from a tower. There was a stream of people coming from the mosque on their way to Jerusalem passing the police men, who were ignoring most of them.Short time after our arrival (we don't know if because of us, but it might have happened also because of the visiting public) the 11 men were escorted to a field besides the checkpoint. There they got orders to sit under a tree. When we left at 8:15 a.m. they were still sitting there. In order to find a way to help, we called up Moked Center for the Defence of the Individual), but they could only inform us that the attitude of the police seemed to be within the framework of their duties. We are assuming that the Palestinian men were from the Westbank. -We were checking the passage before the Mosque by passing ourselves, like all the people (among them a lot of school children in uniform) climbing there over a low stone wall. We could cross this border point without any control. On the other side service Taxis were waiting. While passing we met our friend the French citizen and former head of a home for children in Azaria, where she is living until now, after her retirement still caring for Palestinian children. She joins the vigil of the Women in Black every Friday. She told us, that she had yesterday accompanied two children (4 and 7) to visit their father in the prison of Megiddo.Before entering the visitors' department she had to leave her bag with 350 Shekel, documents, keys, clothing and food for the children at the guardians. When she came back everything had disappeared. Looking for it wherever she could, she found in the garbage her address book, some documents and clothing and the food for the children, nothing more. A gentleman who gave her the money to get back, told her that it happened often that the property of visitors of Megiddo prison got embezzled. I adviced her to inform Moked. -Until 7:30 a.m.the people coming from the Mosque passage could pass along the checkpoint almost without control. Then all of a sudden the police changed their strategy checking the papers of almost everybody (exceptions were one older gentlemen and two Muslim dressed women). Among others they rejected teachers and doctors from the hospital Mukassed, who were showing red and green ID's with some documents, but no "Tasrich". We were trying to help by talking to the policemen, but could not even make them to listen.