Abu Dis, Sheikh Saed, Fri 1.2.08, Morning
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Observers:
Ephrat and Clair
Feb-1-2008
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Morning
Sheikh Saed 09:45
Elderly men and women are waiting in the bitter cold. Maybe, maybe they will be able to go to El Akza, to the market, to the hospital. Undermining and dangerous activities according to the soldiers, twelve of them, who stand in the checkpoint and follow orders. Despite the fact that they know those old people personally, despite the fact that they remember that two years ago, and one year ago they would let them go through without a permit. (Do you want me to lose my job?!)
No request is helpful. The person in charge explains the situation in a tone of voice that is a combination of patronage and compassion. He is also a little angree "They told you that they want to pray. They told me that they need to get to the hospital!" Of course, this is the final proof of how the Palestinians are pathological lyers, and whoever has planned to commit the crime of going to a hospital deserves to stay locked up in his village.
The old women are impatient: "talk with them, let us through!!". One of them pulls out the old well known permit from 1996. A younger man tells us about the special permit a lawyer has got for him and his big family in Sheikh Saed, in 2006. When we asked what has been decided in court, he says that the final decision was supposed to be given on 28.1.2008, but was postponed to 3.2.2008.
10:30 Frustrated by our inability to help those old people waiting in the cold we leave the place, not through the small corridor that was built for the Palestinians, but on the other side, where we were sent. The person in charge of the checkpoint tells us: "Next time you pass, do it where the Palestinians go through, so can feel how complicated it is to go through the checkpoint". He did not say it mockingly or humurously, but very seriously.