Morning

We arrived at 07:45 to find a stream of people climbing over the wall. Conditions in the field and at the wall get worse from day to day. Climbing the wall is more of a hazard than it was a few weeks ago.When we arrived, a border police jeep was parked by the wall. One border policeman was sitting on the wall, with a big club in his hand. The other was standing on “our” side of the wall helping people to cross. No ID’s were checked. We went up to the parked jeep to complain about the situation. The officer sitting in the jeep was very abusive and explained that the crossing is conditional, that Palestinians should be thankful that they are let through at all. We phoned Sfadi and the Army Humanitarians and asked to consider moving one of the concrete blocks to spare the horrific wall climbing. Both phone calls resulted in a promise “to look into the situation”. Any further attempts to speak with the local officer were fruitless and provoked threats that interference by us will result in his stopping the crossing all together. He explained that the official crossing is in A-Za'im (kilometers away from Abu-Dis) and he suggests people should go there where conditions are better. While we were standing by the wall, we suddenly saw two border police running towards the Mosque with guns in shooting position. They were warned by the BP stationed on the roof of the corner house about a man jumping over a wall. We followed and watched as they were “catching” the young man and made him take off his shirt, his shoes and open his trousers. He was then taken to the jeep for checking but let go after a few minutes. Local people we approached complained about conditions and about the very unpleasant officer, but mentioned the one helpful soldier and his positive attitude.The university gate is permanently closed and the concrete barricades along the street up to the university are now partly covered with barbed wire, which, of course, makes jumping over them impossible.