WADI NAAR, EL AZARIAH, THE OLIVES CHECKPOINT, ABU-DIS, Tuesday 18.4.2006 AM Observers: Yael Y.L., Yehudith S., Michaela R. (reporting)Simon – a guest from Germany Summary: One day after the attack at the central bus station in Tel-Aviv. Very little traffic on the main roads. Unpleasant sights in Abu-Dis, mainly due to the inappropriate behaviour of one of the border policemen. 7:00 WADI NAAR Very little traffic. 3 taxis detained, a pile of documents on the table at the post, but no one is in a hurry to check them. At any given moment there were 2-5 vehicles detained, mainly in the direction of Bethlehem.No DCO representative was present at this hour. Attempts to negotiate with the border policemen at the checkpoint were met with hostility. A transit vehicle arrives from the south, deposits 7 young men, and turns back. The men wait for a long time at the carousel without getting any attention. Finally someone orders them to walk along the road, and then they are all ushered into the lean-to for detainees. They had to wait longer than any of the taxis. 8:00 EL AZARIAH Little traffic, almost no line, and detentions are few and short. A police van is parked facing the opposite direction. The earthworks on the side of the road are progressing. 8:30 THE OLIVES CHECKPOINT Empty. Few cross, relatively fast. A border-police jeep is parked at the edge of the parking lot, 2 descend to patrol the hills to the north-east. They perch on a rock and view the dirt road and the wadi. Under the checkpoint, to the east, the ruins of a house with three tents next to it are visible. 7:50 ABU-DIS According to today’s closure instructions owners of blue ID’s, medical teams, church employees and humanitarian cases may cross. the old Pishpesh border policeman A. throws his weight around. Fair-haired, speaking broken Hebrew which not all can understand, he yells at people to move back. All the time we were there this representative of the law repeatedly challenged and screamed at people. Border police are required to wear name tags, as is well known, but A. did not wear one and refused to do so when we required it (“who are you, the sergeant major?”). He put on his name tag only when an officer arrived to look into the matter at our request. This officer, M.A., made sure that all his men wore their name tags visibly. He calmed things down, and proceeded to examine requests attentively and judiciously. Many of those who had been turned away vociferously by A. were allowed to cross, among them the elderly and those requiring medical attention; a class of female pupils, a woman with medical documents but invalid date — the officer called the hospital and let the woman through. A cancer patient, accompnaied by her mother but not her husband, crossed, as did an accompanied child with eye problems. A woman with a baby in her arms was not allowed to cross on the suspicion that it was not her child. Neither did a man who had no documents and turned to Silvia; we tried to draw the officer’s attention to him.