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Dec-8-2003
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Abu Dis, Monday morning Dec. 8.Judy Orstav, Mira Maapil, Talia As 6:00: A man and woman soldier in front of the gas station check some of the i.ds of the people who pass or who climbed over the wall. Along the wall we can see people climbing without being disturbed. The Italian reporter and his Israeli photographer are here; they are documenting the situation at Abu Dis and already know it well. We walk up to the hotel; no soldiers, only the security service men eating breakfast. At one point a low cement block replaces the high cement element of the wall, so it is easy to climb over. At the Pishpash there are no soldiers and people pass freely. At Beir Faraj, on the way to Wadi Nar, we see 2 soldiers patrolling the street. There were also several Magav jeeps with soldiers; we didn’t stop. We think it’s a good idea to check out this area. Wadi Nar, 8:30. The checkpoint has been reinforced and organized. There are several detaineesinfo-icon, including the student we saw last week, who says he goes through the same thing every week. There are 2 soldiers, including Ran, the commander of the post, and a policeman. A woman soldiers is eating sunflower seeds. The stop each taxi and take out several passengers for i.d. checks. The soldier in the guard tower phones to check them; so does the policeman. When we ask the policeman what’s the difference, he says he does routine checks, and we are smart enough to understand what that means. He doesn’t check the physical state of the cars as they were doing last week—only a security check of the baggage, and i.d.s which he passed on to the soldier in the tower. Soon there were about 30 detainees (who waited on the average for an hour), and a line of cars stretching back toward Bethlehem as far as the bend in the road. Ran, who was checking the vehicles from this direction, was not hurrying. He was checking vehicles and people, returning i.d.s, and answering other soldiers’ questions—all at a slow pace, up to 10 minutes per car. We were afraid that the build-up of cars and people waiting would cause pressure that would lead to things getting out of hand and we asked him to bring over more soldiers to speed up the checking, but he said he needed them for security duty and things took time because he had to handle them himself. After a while a Border Police jeep arrived with an officer (Rafiq?). We called his attention to the delay but he said they knew what they were doing. Finally the situation became untenable and the soldiers started passing cars through without checking them, or at least without detaining more people. The number of detainees was reduced; we left at about 10:00.Talia