Afternoon

Abu Dis and Sawahre checkpoints, THU PM, 1 Dec 2004. MachsomWatcher Observers: Sima, Maya, Sari, Nurit (reporting) 14:30, Abu Dis :When we arrived, we found that the block that people had moved in order to make climbing the wall easier, had been replaced. We watched a couple pass their small children through a space in the wall. Then we tried to help an overweight woman squeeze through the space between two closely-placed portable concrete road barriers. She couldn't manage it. We met a woman from the neighborhood who showed us the path across through the hotel. She also showed us the "Fence" [part of the Separation Wall] that is growing ferociously every day. The whole area behind the hotel is filled with the modular concrete road barriers that are to be placed soon.We also met a young woman who walked with us and was beside herself with joy to meet us. We exchanged hugs and kisses and e-mails. She was just so happy to meet some nice Israelis.There was no special problem in the area, just a lot of discouraged people. We took a taxi to the Sawahre (Wadi Naar) checkpoint:We found a new group of Border Police are now stationed there. They were very defensive and unfriendly.We discovered, behind the wall they have erected by the checkpoint, a man who was sitting with his hands handcuffed behind his back and his head covered by his jacket, with his jacket was pulled up over his head. When we inquired it turned out that this man was under arrest and we were not allowed to approach him and the soldiers would not give us his name or any details as to how long he was there and why they had arrested him.We made a number of calls but found that we could not be helped without the name of the arrested man. One of the soldiers told me that the only way I could find out what is going on with this man is "if you have a friend in the Shabak [GSS; Security Service]." He said this man's family will find out about his arrest. Aside from this the soldiers were very efficient in their checking and there were hardly any detainees and when there were, they were checked and then released. We noticed that those with blue [Israeli] IDs were turned back.There was a family in a nice car with a Red Crescent sign that was detained as the man had an orange ID and the woman a blue one. The soldiers were phoning around and trying to get permission to let them pass. The couple sat stoicly and waited, thanking us for inquiring and trying to help. Again we met a blue-uniformed [Israeli] policeman who was there in order to give traffic tickets. He was friendly. He said that he thought that perhaps our presence was making things worse because after we left the soldiers would take out their anger on the Palestinians. The soldiers were very defensive and would not talk to us. We got the impression that they were afraid we would complain about them. This brought to mind the idea that our complaints may actually have an effect on them. While we were there a taxi driver came who explained that there is a huge fight going on between two clans who are feuding over a relatively petty matter in their taxi business (the stealing of customers from one taxi to another). It seems that three people are already hospitalized--injured very seriously by this fighting.This story brought out the fact that these people are essentially living without any sort of police protection as the Palestinian Authority no longer has any authority and there is no real alternative police. The IDF does not intervene in internal problems such as this.We returned at 17:00 with no further incidents. We met people who were eager to talk to us about the how the Wall will make their lives impossible. Along our way we could see the huge grey wall closing in. In comparision, the low concrete modular road barriers in Abu Dis seem like child's play.