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Anata, Issawiya CP opposite Border Police Base, Issawiya CP from French Hill, Sawahre.

ill 5:00 PM

We hadn’t been for a long time to the entrance of Anata and the Shuafat Refugee Camp. A roundabout with sidewalks of Ackerstein has been constructed and the pedestrians (many schoolchildren) now enter via a cage/sleeve – which is less hazardous, since they cannot be run over until they pass the CP after which the road turns narrow again and no longer has any sidewalks and becomes even narrower due to the market which is expanding along the road. The drivers, however, do not slow down a bit. There is major housing construction. On top of formerly one- or two-storey buildings we now counted eleven floors. This must be due to the influx of Palestinians who can no longer remain in their homes across the wall if they want to benefit from the privileges of their blue Id. such as work, social security, health insurance and free education. After the rains the potholes in the road have increased in number, size and depth. We noted the new CP more to the South under construction, but would later see more of it. We first went to the northern entrance with the smaller CP where we saw no soldiers, but two new turnstiles near the main road, which were operated from afar. The schoolgirls who entered pressed a button and the gates turned. The wall between Pisgat Zeev and Anata is now completed. We turned into the old road to Jericho and from the Dor Alon Gas station had a good view of the construction involving the enormous extension of the CP – including a huge parking lot and widening of the main road. A big sign advertised villas in Kedar.

At the new roundabout before the A-Zaim CP we turned left into the road which will eventually encircle Jerusalem with a separate section for Palestinians – the speed limit is 50 km. but after about a hundred yards it is blocked by a huge gate and stops.

We turned around to enter Issawiya via the new CP on the right of the old Jericho road and were stopped by two Border Police men who politely insisted that we were not allowed to enter. The road is closed to Jews. We insisted that Issawiya belongs to Jerusalem and asked for a paper stating that entry to Jews was prohibited. The soldiers were unable to produce such an order, but still insisted that we could not continue and made us turn back (“Yalla”, they said, when we had bothered them for too long).

We turned back and entered Issawiya via French Hill at Mount Scopus without any problem. On the way back we parked the car at the gas station wanting to have a look at the empty lot behind the soldiers. They approached us and couldn’t understand how we had entered and ‘escaped’ the dangers. They cited three violent incidents and told us that Jews were warned not to enter, but of course, if they insisted, were allowed to continue, since this indeed is Jerusalem. However, they insisted we could not enter the vacant lot behind them, since it was a closed military zone. When we asked for a paper, he called his officer who said he was going to come, but needed to have our Id. numbers, which he duly wrote down. However, the officer was occupied elsewhere and didn’t turn up, so we left.

Driving in the opposite direction we usually go we passed the settlement with the huge (now half torn) flag waving in the wind on the Mount of Olives and the deserted Pish Pash. On the top of Ras El-Amud we saw a new sign (like the ones in all the Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem) announcing the entrance into Maaleh Zeitim, where settlers have now occupied the second part of the housing project. Across the street the renovation of the former police compound is proceeding fast.

We drove down along potholes and narrow lanes with lots of traffic to the American Road and turned left across the clinic near Zena’s Bakery to the Sawahre CP.

We saw no soldiers and entered the sleeve for pedestrians where a Palestinian young woman who had rung the bell of an intercom held the gate open for us. We were amazed to be able to enter the holiest of holiest without any problems and were even allowed to go through the metal detectors without leaving our bag on the conveyor belt or showing our Id’s. When we had crossed into the other side we asked the Military Police soldiers who manned the CP for the way to return to our car and

they very amicably, again without asking any questions assisted us to go back the same way we had entered – a miracle!