Access to the East Jerusalem was easy, and police presence not conspicuous. However, near the bottom of the Mount of Olives, a BP jeep was stopping transits coming into Jerusalem, searching for people with the “wrong” ID. Several elderly people were waiting for their IDs to be returned.Abu DisA young transit driver told us that his car was confiscated, because a man with a Palestinian ID was standing right next to his car, and the Border Police claimed he had been inside.There was no Border Police presence at the lower part of wall (by the gasstation). Even though two BP jeeps passed by, passage across the wall continued unhindered – except by the wall itself.On the way up to the mosque we encountered three border policemen who were less hostile than usual. One of them even expressed his support for a two state solution. A group of elderly people – the same ones whose IDs had been confiscated down by the Mount of Olives – had made their way back to Abu Dis and were brought to us by a man who had told them we were there to help them. To our amazement, one of the BPs made a short phonecall, and within less than five minutes the IDs were delivered by a BP jeep. The group immediately set out on another attempt to reach Friday prayers in Jerusalem.As we know, on the Mosque side the wall now goes past the Qur’an College. A very small space between the betonadot was used being passed by several, mostly elderly people in our presence. On the other side of the wall, one of the shopowners approached us, asking us to intervene on their behalf, as they had been told to clear the area by the wall. “We can’t go to Jerusalem to sell our things, and nowwe aren’t even allowed to do business here?” We did try (unsuccessfully) to find the person who had given the order, but we only found a lone officer who, when asked about the wisdom of denying Palestinian vendors the possibility to eke out a living by trying to sell their stuff where there actually are potential customers, he voiced the suspicion that these very vendors might be using the long hours of their presence there “to check things out” … Aha! SawahreApproaching the checkpoint, we saw hardly any pedestrians, but a line of about ten trucks waiting in the heat. There were no signs of life on the side of the Border Police. Some of the drivers told us that they had been waiting since the early morning hours (between five and six a.m.), and so far no one had passed. The BP were displaying ample disinterest, and nobody was tending to the drivers’ needs. My attempt to ask one of the BP what this was all about yielded nothing but an admonition from one of his colleagues not to engage in any kind of communication with us. Eventually, for lack of an interlocutor on the ground, we called thesurprisingly friendly Ran Kravitz of DCO Abu-Dis, who listened to our description of the situation and explained that there was a closure and that only basic food supplies were allowed to pass. Moreover, he suspected that the drivers were blue ID holders trying to avoid traffic jams and therefore taking this shortcut rather than using checkpoint 300, which they are required by law to do. However, it turned out that all the drivers had Palestinian license plates and IDs. We told R.K. this, and after only a few more minutes the line started moving. Every driver had to present his permit. In some, though not all, cases the merchandise was inspected superficially, and it was over in less than five minutes. Only a man with refrigerators on his truck was sent back, because he didn’t have a special permit to pass in times of closure. We were unable to help him. We also asked for help for an old woman and her grandson who had been held up already for a long time. We were not able to considerably speed up the processing of their case, since, we were told, the offices are understaffed on the weekends. Meanwhile, we had struck up a conversation with some of the BP people who had come up from the lower checkpoint. The commander in charge is Haviv Edri, who appears to have an interest in the decent handling of things around the checkpoint. If help is needed at Sawahre, he can be called at 056 – 444431.