Sheikh Saed Sunday, 13.08.2006, AMObservers: Judith A, Dalia K. (reporter)Monique (a guest)We chose to dedicate the whole shift to what happens in Sheikh Saed. After a while we found out that our decision was right, because we witnessed a very stormy day.We stayed in Sheikh Saed, by the checkpoint and inside the village from 06:55 until 09:00.On our way to Sheikh Saed, still inside Jabel Mukaber we saw two soldiers who checked IDs or permits of detainees. When we arrived at Sheikh Saed we saw a very vigorous woman-soldier and two passive men-soldiers by the checkpoint. Opposite them a group of workers are waiting behind barbed wires that were put there not long ago “on a waiting line”. This time, like Sunday a week ago, the workers are called one by one by the woman soldier, so they should come near her with their paper, but today they did not have to pull up their shirts and expose their bodies. Suddenly two soldiers enter the village in a storm, holding guns armed with smoke grenades. The woman soldiers keeps on checking. Most of the people being checked (except those with blue IDs) are not allowed to enter Israel because of the closure.Among the ones who were refused entry there is an older person, who is going to a hospital because of heart problems (post operation?). We try to help and the woman soldier (who is using verbal aggression often) suggests to him to talk to the commander, but he is busy in military activity inside the village. We enter the village too.Aside there is a big pile of garbage, in it nylon bags and cylindrical metallic cartridge cases, that carry the signs of Israel police. The cartridges are empty now, but when they were shot out of the rifles they distributed tear gas. Soon we meet two youngsters, their eyes red and they hold an onion in their hands. According to them a gas grenade was just thrown at them up the way in the village. As far as we walk in we meet more and more people complaining about smoke grenades, tear gas, shock grenades (they make a “boom” noise) and even rubber bullets. The speakers, mostly young people, tell us that the grenades were thrown since early morning hours, before five o’clock, when the first workers gathered at direction of the fence. On other days too there is use of tear gas during the day. On Saturday, for example, rubber bullets were thrown on five people, one of them a thirteen years old boy who was wounded and taken to care of. The grenades and rubber bullets are thrown in order to prevent passage of workers from the west bank to Israel through the “temporary” checkpoint (until the supreme court will decide where the wall will be put) between Sheikh Saed and Jabel Mukaber. But the gas penetrates the houses in the village and harms the inhabitants in general and the children in particular. The inhabitants ask us to work towards stopping the use of these devices. One of them even made a wish “Let them build that wall, which closes us in, already, so that the workers from the territories will stop passing to Israel through here”.We meet young people, and some less young, who show us their entry permits to Israel. Those are useless now because of the closure. The usual complaint is heard: “What is the use in these permits (that also cost a lot of money – to the Jewish employer and to the worker himself) if there is no opportunity, or almost none to use them because of the long closure”.A few Palestinians who have no permits (and yet have not lost hope) ask us to help them getting the necessary documents. We give them the (new) telephone number of Sylvia. An “honorable” man appears holding a stick painted yellow. To my question he answers that he is “doing magic”. “Bring us peace with your magic”, I ask him. He answers that it is not so simple, since the problem is not local, and not regional, “but very strong outside forces are involved”. We look again at the hills, the fields, the roads and the sewerage system in the valley, get on an old car, and drive back to the checkpoint. Our driver tells us that since he cannot get out of the village he makes a scarce living from driving people here and there in the ally ways of Sheikh Saed. On the way out we bump into the commander who has come back from his military action. He is angry with us for entering the village. “You entered area A” the active woman-soldier supports him. ”You are wrong” we said, ”and we will prove it to you on the map” and without arguing any longer we hurried to our blue car. We had more than enough for one morning. Happy are we that the right to move out of there is in our hands.