Morning

The road from the Damascus gate to Abu Dis is full of policemen, border police and several checkpointim... the road east (towards Abu Dis) is closed by police barrier (just above the Lion's Gate) and very few cars moved from east to west (towards Jerusalem). In Abu Dis the army seems to be organized for Ramadan... a narrow opening is made in the wall near the gas station where people pass through towards Jerusalem.... people coming from Jerusalem move through the mosque which is open only one way today (east) ...only men above the age of 50 and women above 40 are allowed through (to Jerusalem) and children under 11-12 ) also people with permits are allowed through. There are about 15 border policemen and one or two women and one army officer in the area (including near the mosque area) as well as three jeeps during the entire time... from time to time some more jeeps arrive with high ranking officers (border police).A border policemen arranges the people in groups of tens... they have to stand there and wait until he allows them to move through... when each group moves through he makes a sign on a piece of paper Two soldiers at the vantage point above the gas station are very active today screaming messages to the soldiers on the ground pointing towards people by passing through the field. The commander of the area says that after Ramadan the army is going to close the mosque and move the checkpoint west towards Jerusalem. By doing so, the officer continues, Israel gives up few 'dunamim' but the closure on the area will be tightened... access to Al Kuds University and the Palestinian Parliament will be secured though. When he saw M taking out one of her lists, he asked what kind of records we make and said he could arrest us for delivering information to the enemy.On our way home we passed 5 provisional checkpointim...