Morning

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Feb-18-2003
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When we arrived at the wall about 6:30 a.m. 10 young men stood in line at the gasoline station waiting to be checked.Some other young men told us that they were forced to take the stones away which served as stairs to ease crossing over the wall-passage. After a heavy rain in the early morning, the field behind the wall was muddy. For a while, the two border police on duty let no one pass. So the people - among them a lot of children and women - stood behind the wall in the mud, looking over it , waiting.After about 20 minutes the soldier at the wall allowed children to pass. But how could they? The wall was too high for them. But we got organized: on the Abu Dis side somebody lifted them up put them on the wall. A very strong young man lifted them up and passed them over to us on the other side, and we helped them down to a safe landing. All our common efforts could not prevent a heavy woman from falling on a little girl who was crying desperately when we caught her on "our" side. Eventually it appeared (there were no clear orders) that everybody could pass, but the soldiers at the wall indicated that young men would not be permitted across. While we lifted children and other people, M was trying to reach Safadi , Moked or the Physicians for Human Rights on the phone, but without success. However she was successful in intervening on behalf of a doctor who got stopped on his way to a hospital and a man who was helping his sick mother on her way to a clinic.The commander of the unit reacted with hostility when we asked him to change the wall passage, but a short time later, the checking soldiers left, taking with them 3 young men. They walked up the hill in the villa quarter. From now on everybody could pass without control.We followed the three detaineesinfo-icon.. Their data got checked at a quiet corner. After signing something, they were allowed to leave. One of the soldiers offered his sandwich to their last detainee, who politely declined the offer.