Morning

Access to the Eastern part of town was easy and police presence less conspicuous.However, near the bottom of the Mount of Olives there was a border police jeep stopping transits coming from the Ras al-Amud and Abu-Dis directions in search of people with the "wrong" kind of ID. Several elderly people were standing outside the car, waiting for their IDs to be returned.Abu DisA young transit driver told us that his car was confiscated because when it was inspected for "illegals", a man with a Palestinian ID stood right next to his car and the Border Police claimed he had been inside.Interestingly, there was absolutely no checking of IDs and no Border Police presence at the lower part of wall (by the gas station). Even though two Border Police jeeps passed by, passage across the wall continued unhindered - that is, hindered only by the wall itself. On the way up to the mosque we encountered three border policemen who were less hostile than usual. One of them even expressed his support for a two state solution. A group of elderly people - the same ones whose IDs had been confiscated down by the Mount of Olives had made their way back to Abu Dis and were brought to us by a man who had told them we were there to help them. To our amazement, one of the borderpolicemen made a short phonecall, and within less than five minutes the IDs were delivered by a BP jeep. The group immediately set out on another attempt to reach Friday prayers in Jerusalem.As other groups have testified, on the Mosque side the wall goes way up past the College. A very small space between the barricades was used as a passage by several, mostly elderly people in our presence, for whom this was quite a precarious climb.On the other side of the wall, one of the stall-keepers approached us, asking us to intervene on their behalf, as they had been told to clear the area by the wall. "We can't go to Jerusalem to sell our things. We can't get out, and now we aren't even allowed to do business here?" We did try (unsuccessfully) to find the person who had given the order, but we only found a lone officer who, when asked about the wisdom of denying Palestinian vendors the possibility to eke out a living by trying to sell their stuff in a place where there actually are potential customers, he uttered the suspicion that these very vendors might be using the long hours of their presence to check things out. If my information is correct, Border Police on Shabbat overturned the stalls and trampled on the items that were supposed to be sold there SawahreApproaching the checkpoint, we saw hardly any pedestrians but a line of about ten trucks waiting in the heat. There were no signs of life on the side of the Border Police. Some of the drivers told us that they had been waiting since the early morning hours (between five and six a.m.) but that so far no one had passed. My attempt to ask one of the BP men what this was all about yielded nothing but an admonition from one of his colleagues not to engage in any kind of communication with us.Ee called the Ran Kravitz of Abu-Dis command who listened to our description of the situation and explained that there was a closure and that only basic food supplies were allowed to pass. After a few the line started moving. Every driver had to present his permit.The whole process took three to five minutes at the worst. Only a man with refrigerators on his truck was sent back. We were unable to help him.Meanwhile, we actually succeeded at striking up a conversation with some of the BP people who had come up from the lower checkpoint. The commander appeared to have an interest in the decent handling of things around the checkpoint. If help is needed at Sawahre, he can be called at 056 - 444431.