Abu Dis, Container (Wadi Nar), Sheikh Saed, Mon 11.8.08, Afternoon
From 3:00 till 6:00 PM
Most of our shift was dedicated to show our French guest around. He had been introduced to us as a Photographer (last exhibition www.cezanne2006.blogspot.com). He also a "daily blog" and his notes are published in different magazines on various subjects from politics to sailing! He used the opportunity to get to sights he normally would not reach. .
Watch his blog of August 11, 2008 here http://kacouy.blog.lemonde.fr.
The turnstiles of Sheikh Sa’ed do not work since yesterday and everyone can walk up and down the main road with its traffic light constantly on red, instead of through the narrow cages – this apparently does not constitute a security risk, so the question might be raised what purpose the cages and the fortified concrete construction serve.
In the village we chatted with the frustrated men waiting near their cars to earn a few shekels. There are now only 2000 people left from the original 5000 – whoever could has found his luck elsewhere. A thirteen-year-old boy was driving passengers from the CP to their houses – he is one of the crew. His father is no longer able to work and he has to provide for his mother and three sisters. There is apparently no authority to stop this dangerous precedent of an unlicensed 13-year-old taxi-driver.
We drove along the Road of the Americas to Ras El Amud and from there to the wall in Abu Dis where some more juicy graffiti has been added. At the pish-pash only men entered and exited who left their blue Id’s with the soldiers. If they enter only for short errands, this is apparently the only way to avoid having to exit via the Olive Passage, which necessitates a huge detour. The entrance into Jerusalem through this passage is only allowed to people living in the close vicinity of the CP. The soldiers told us that thousands make use of it in the morning.
At the Container CP we had never seen as long a line of waiting cars on the way into Bethlehem – as soon as we were spotted they were all motioned along and after ten minutes the road was clear. A youngish man who transports workers in his transit through the CP bemoaned the fact that when he was young they used to go to the beach in the summer, now he has to work since his father died and he has ten brothers and sisters without any income. “Life is unbearable!”
The traffic from El Azariya has to stop before the roundabout of Maaleh Adumim where a long line of cars at the end of the workday made its way into the settlement – needless to say that no one bothered to make way for the Palestinians.