Abu-Dis

Abu-Dis Upon arriving at the gas
station in Abu Dis, we found five Palestinian men crouching by the
wall, trying to remain in the little shade it provided. Three of
them told us they had been waiting for more than three hours. Our
intervention with border police officers of various ranks did not
yield any success. Someone from the Moked promised to help, but
when we followed her request to hand the mobile phone to one of the
detainees, one of the border police men came running over in a
dash, harshly ordering us to desist from this dangerous activity
("they kill babies!") and to stay away from the
detainees. Subsequently, we tried to call Jad'an Safadi who told me
to remove his name from our list since he is no longer in charge.
Commander Salman Hirbawi did not answer his phone. In the end we
contacted Ran Kravitz of Abu-Dis DCO, who initially tried to
justify the behaviour of the border police by voicing the
assumption that they were operating on special orders, but then
promised to tell those responsible that "this doesn't look
very good". It sure didn't. We decided to move on, figuring
that were the border police really to get an order to release the
detainees, they'd be more inclined to do so in our absence. Up on
the hill, we saw the damage done to the gate of the hotel by the
bulldozers and the destroyed wall on the back side, an opening
created for the convenience of the bulldozers needed to build the
separation fence. A man living in the hotel volunteered all kinds
of information. He and another man took up lodging in the hotel and
brought in furniture to prove that it is being used. Maybe he was
convinced of the army's noble intentions and delicate way of
handling its affairs when they transferred olive trees from his
territory (which will be destroyed for the sake of the wall) to
that of his brother in order not to harm them. He also spoke about
17 homes that are to be demolished in the Abu-Dis - Sawahre area in
order to make room for the wall. Terry B, who has often supplied
Machsom Watch with information, passed by. She is very worried
about the future of her school and her family, which will be cut
apart by the wall, the construction of which is supposed to be
finished a month from now. Since she had to rush off, we decided to
go back and see how the detainees were. To our relief, they had
been released. We then proceeded to climb to the other side, where
we paid a short visit to a family, which has the bad luck of living
just by the wall.

Sawahre: In general, the flow of traffic was relatively smooth.
However, one group of construction workers on their way home for
the weekend from Ramallah to Hebron, were held for an entire hour.
The border police officer approached by us to explain the undue
tardiness assured us that the problem was on the side of the
terminal, which tends to be understaffed on weekends. We were not
able to speed up the process.