Abu Dis Thursday AM, 22.9.05Observers: Channa I., Dafna S., Neta A. (reporting).A large number of people are detained coming down Mount Olives beneath the Russian Maria Magdalena Church. They are taken off the buses and go through the usual routine of taking down of their names during a long wait. We got a phone call saying there were about a hundred detainees. We called the military center. The girl on duty got back to us and said they were not in charge of internal affairs in Jerusalem but would check what was happening at the hotel (she was in touch with us the whole time). We called the office of the commander of the BP in Jerusalem, but there was no one to talk to. In the meanwhile the jeep of the shift commander arrived and managed to speed things up a little. Half an hour later most of the detainees were released.When we reached the Cliff Hotel there were about 50 detainees there. Terry Balata arrived and told that at approximately 07:00 around a hundred people were moved close to the hotel in a sort of a parade, they were told to stand up and sit down like prisoners. She made an urgent call to a volunteer from the Saudi institute up the hill who related she had seen a Palestinian beaten there in the morning. She pointed to the beating BP-man and the beaten Palestinian. We wrote down the details of all those involved, including those of the commander. In the meantime some people from the DCO of the Jerusalem Envelope arrived following our phone call to the center – Faras and his successor Major Yaniv. They also heard what the two women had to say regarding the morning incident.We called A., the company commander, several times and Channa also called him from home, but he would not come. I informed him we were going to file a complaint to the Police Investigation Unit.Around 09:00 all the detainees were released.We went to see the “new miracle”. We were told that there was a new opening near the gas station. Indeed, there is an opening there. However, soon after, some BP-men arrived and prevented people from going through. The opening was presumably created for the beginning of the construction of the wall between the houses close to the former Pishpash and obviously not for humanitarian reasons.A member of the neighborhood committee showed us how the wall would be built between the houses. Horrifying. According to him, the lawyer, Dachla, is doing nothing to help them and the bulldozers have already demolished parts of the houses for the wall to go through, right inside the yards of the houses. We referred him to Dani Zeidman. The sights at the new opening were heartbreaking. Passage for the old and the sick was denied. There was a young woman with a child who was referred to the hospital and accompanied by her elderly father, about 70 years of age. They begged that the father be allowed to accompany his daughter but to no avail. Following and hour of arguments, yelling, begging and phone calls, they retracted their steps. Even phone calls did not help. The hard heartedness, the malice, they all have nothing to do with “security”. Confronted with the difficult sights we observed and took pictures of, soon none of us will be able to get off the plane in any airport around the world…I sent a complaint to the Police Investigation Unit regarding the beating at the Cliff Hotel with a copy to the commander of the BP, to the BP Public Complaints officer and to the Commander of the southern battalion directly in charge of these people.And that is not the end of the story… A., the company commander called me in the afternoon. He asked for Channa’s phone number, which I gave, while explaining that she is not our manager but rather our liaison with the army. To his surprise he understood that we have no manager and announced that he would stop cooperating with MW women because of me. You are hereby warned. In future I suggest calling the military center, the officers at the Jerusalem Envelope DCO and the office of the southern battalion commander.