Afternoon

The first day after the month of Ramadan and things are back to 'normal', meaning: a lot of traffic also after 5 p.m. and endless streams of people going about their daily business in both directions until late in the evening. We couldn't establish for certain until what time the checkpoint is open now.Our main attention, however, was given to the village Jab'a this time. Our friend A. informed us, that the improvised entrance to the village from the main road that they had been using during the passed months had just been blocked. Not only had the Military Police blocked the entrance, but they had also stopped a passing garbage van and ordered the driver to empty all the garbage in front of the blocked entrance, to emphasize their point. We took pictures and watched the little crowd of Jab'a men removing the barbed wire a little further up and remove stones to free the path for a new access to the village. While we stayed there to protect them from further interference by the army, news got to us, that an improvised checkpoint had just been established at the main entrance to Jab'a (the Adam-junction with the blocked tunnel nearby). We then went down to attend to watching the Military Police checking cars and detaining people (amongst them 6 students form the El-Kuds University, on their way to Abu-Dis). In no time a huge line of cars had accumulated, as the checking was done by one soldier only (the 2 others being there in the capacity of 'cover', we were told). Exactly one hour later, the road was opened again for traffic and the detainees released. The checking at Qalandya went relatively smoothly at both ends. Today we called A. from Jab'a to find out what had occurred since yesterday. He told us, that they had dug a more convenient entrance (also from the main road) during 2 hours' work at night, but that in the morning the Military Police had blocked that entrance too. The commander of the Ramallah DCO was called and we ccomplained about the occurrences, and informed the Moked too. In the afternoon A. informed us, that the army had actually shown up and REMOVED the rocks from the entrance which they had blocked yesterday.