Morning

We arrived at 6:20 AM. The checkpoint was totally closed. There were two Border Police and a woman soldier at the mosque, who didn’t allow anyone to pass on the grounds that: “There’s a security action on and we don’t want that any children should get hurt.”At around 7AM, for no apparent reason, they allowed pupils, teachers and doctors to pass the checkpoint, and then after 10 minutes, again without any observable reason, the soldiers left the mosque, leaving the passage completely unguarded.At the gas station random searches were carried out, primarily on men. Occasionally ID numbers were written down. There were no detainees or people who were denied passage.During the whole time a jeep patroled at the top of the road, next to the gas station in the direction of the mosque.When the situation was calm the Border Police came over to talk to us. They said “You were spying on us, looking at us, checking on us...”They told us that they don’t make the rules, and they don”t decide who passes and when. However, they were very proud of the fact that they are cutting down the number of terror attacks. Nevertheless, they feel that it’s not right that the Palestinians throw expolsives at the checkpoint.A Palestinian woman thanked us for our presence and told us that soldiers’ bahaviour definitely improves when we’re around.