Morning

Abu Dis, Friday AM, 2 Jan 2004. MachsomWatchers: Rita M-F, Michal Z, Avigail, Barbara (reporting, helped by R.). The first difficult sight already presented itself to us even before we ever got out of Jerusalem: at Kikar Tzahal (a Jewish neighborhood of East Jerusalem), about twenty detainees were being held by the Border Police. Since there was no place to park, we decided to go on to Abu Dis.The entrance to the street opposite the place where the gate used to be was blocked by mounds of dirt and sand. We were told by some of the taxi-van drivers who work in this place that this blockage had been in place for about five days and that it had been replaced after each one of the four times that frustrated residents had removed it. Whoever passes risks getting a traffic ticket. The purpose of this blockage is to force people to use the main road, which is under BP surveillance, rather than bypassing it on a side road. Two stories told to us: (1) A driver had had his car confiscated for 30 days after having been caught having a resident of the Territories among his passengers.(2) The previous day, an elderly woman fell as she was trying to climb over the wall and had to be taken to the Moqassad Hospital. Down by the Gas Station:Two Swedish women tried to climb westward from Al-Azzariye. One of them managed to jump down from the wall, the other one had a harder time. Several BP men told them (in Hebrew) that they weren't allowed to come in this way. Our attempts at persuading the BPs to be a bit more flexible remained fruitless, but a call to Aweda did the trick.It goes without saying that no Palestinians were allowed to pass (however, they did so anyway, under life-threatening circumstances a little farther up the hill). At the Hotel, everything was quiet.At the Sawarhe (Wadi Nar) checkpoint, there was unusually little traffic and no pedestrian queues whatsoever. The very few people waiting to pass had there IDs checked without much delay. A new, rather communicative and friendly BP officer named Ya'acov enthusiastically told us what a beautiful checkpoint this soon will be: "We'll have a coffee corner!" The checking of people was done sporadically and Y. said they had received orders “to make things easier for the population.” Back in Abu Dis , an incident:We were told that about ten minutes prior to our return, a young man had jumped over the wall and got into an argument with a BP. The young man ran to hide between the metal outside door and the glass storefront window of a falafel restaurant at the gas station, and we were told the BP hit him with a club as he was hiding in that narrow space, breaking the store window. (We are not sure how badly the young man was hurt - he was taken away by the BP). Eyewitnesses claimed that another BP man, who had until then been sitting on a chair, then used his chair to smash the other window. We were told that tear gas was thrown over the wall, possibly to disperse people who had gathered there to watch the violent scene. The storeowner told the story to Yehuda Matzri [high-ranking official in the Civil Administration] who had arrived in his jeep a few minutes later. Matzri had told the store owner to send his son to file a complaint, and that the store owner would probably get compensation for his broken windows. However the son asked us to intervene, as he was at a loss - as a holder of a Palestinian (Territories) ID he could not go into Israel to file this complaint.We spoke to Matzri to explain the absurdity of this situation. He started by claiming that it was actually the young Palestinian who had attacked the BP man, then told us that he had already informed the storeowner's son that he should call him (Matzri), if he encountered any difficulties. It was only with our intervention, however, that Matzri gave the son his cell phone number.[Follow-up, 4 Jan 2004: Barbara heard that people were actually given money "by the army" to replace the windows.