Morning

Share:
Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Email
Dec-14-2002
|

Busy movement of pedestrians in all directions. There are two passages from one side to the other (these passages are not official, but tolerated by the IDF): the longer one which requires climbing more stairs through the Islamic College and a more slippery but with less climbing passage through the mosque. We met Helmut from Notre Dame de Douleurs (the house of aged people) who lives just opposite the mosque passage. Since curfews are imposed on Fridays in Azariya and Abu-Dis , employees sleep on Thursday night in the Notre Dame. Helmut witnessed during last two weeks a few cases of outrageous behavior of soldiers:1. keeping a long line of detained Palestinians with faces towards wall and expressing a pleasure from this situation, 2. spilling 30 liters of oil and broken glass on the mosque passage. and 3. throwing the contents of school-bags of small children. He added that sometimes he witnesses surprising human behavior -- he saw how a soldier carrying two heavy suitcases of a lady all the way through the mosque passage. At about 10 a.m. we saw about 30 detained students whose IDs where checked by the border police. A violent conflict developed between a soldier and a student, but an officer in charge quickly interfered and the violent soldier was send to sit in a jeep. The abused student demanded to know the name of his abuser but was told by an officer to write down a jeep number. The students were released in 15 minutes.