Morning

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Dec-20-2003
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MachsomWatchers: A.G., H.H., V.B.Border Policeman Jubran Gadban is in charge at the Wall, and somewhat willing to help.Around 07:30: We arrived at the wall, near the gas station.Two BPs checking IDs of people coming down from the new pishpash[pedestrian passageway], to the right on the route towards the hotel, more BP on the roof.At the station, checking was being performed by a tall blond BP, mostly civil behavior, but we saw one outburst of gun-waving / yelling. A jeep (22551) approached from Mqassed direction, honking, making loud noises over the loudspeaker. Off jumped a cowboy (dark-haired, possibly Druze?) and got into a verbal fight with us, while refusing to give his name. The topic was a fiftyish man with teacher's ID (no tasrikh [permit]) who was being refused entry.Later, this BP proceeded to spew personal abuses on us.An older BP named Jubran Gadban showed up and intervened - he seemed to be in charge, although his ranks were not visible . He said something like 'You are doing good work ("avodat kodesh!"), let us do ours'.Things calmed down, ID checking proceeded. Apparently there was some leniency towards people (women?) with medical appointments. (However: A.G. recalled people telling her in the past that an officer answering a similar description has been easy on the gas canister trigger.)The Container / Sawahre checkpoint was quiet and reasonably civil, manned by one Ethiopian and one Russian BP. Fairly long car queue, mostly yellow vans. Every 7-th or 8-th car was stopped for "thorough inspection" ("bdika midgamit yesodit").We saw a passenger van with Al-Quds University faculty that was stopped for 1/2 hour, and a public bus delayed for some 10 minutes. People kept arriving on foot as well, similar "bdika midgamit" of IDs was taking place but we did not observe lengthy delays. A woman Military Police ("mishtara tzvait") told us that now there are two of them stationed at each checkpoint, to perform bodily searches on women; as the number of women terrorists is on the rise.Back at the pishpash, we encountered a jeep with Jubran et al., and a group of some 20 people, mostly students, having IDs checked on the way in. Mostly Jerusalem IDs. They moved on within some 15 minutes.Driving down, near Pizza Roma, we observed a bus being stopped by the same tall blond BP and crew, people being removed from the bus (Palestinian IDs, I think), and the bus proceeding on its way. A woman complained that she had passed at the pishpash, boarded the bus, paid 2 NIS to the driver and now had lost them.The BP was visibly oppressed by our presence, called for support on his phone ("Again, those human rights girls"(!)),claimed quite falsely that we encourage "his" detainee to disobey him (people were quiet and meek), and tried (not very diligently) to chase us away.Jubran showed up in a jeep. As we had to leave, we left a few Moked [IDF Humanitarian Alert Center] cards with the detainee.