Abu Dis and SawahreMon. 29 November 2004 AMObservers: Ora A. & Neta E. (reporting) Abu Dis – 15:00 – We started the shift at the Hotel, with excavations all around it. A track has been paved along the path of the wall. We saw another house occupied by settlers (?) – with blue and white flags hanging from it. The pishpash gate – The road from the monastery is open and full of people crossing on their way to Jerusalem. No way of knowing how long it’ll last. At least this path is far less dangerous. No Border Police soldiers to be seen.An impromptu checkpoint at Al Ezariya – Not many cars. The road to the Container on the old road, via Al Ezariya, was open (the cables have been removed).The Container – 07:45 – Thronged in a way we haven’t seen for ages. Some 30 cars coming from Abu Dis were waiting to go to Bethlehem. Several drivers said they had been waiting for an hour. A long line of cars deep in the wadi, coming from Bethlehem – close to 60 cars were waiting. Their drivers reported waits of two hours, and all those detainees from yesterday, waiting in the pedestrians line. A Border Police soldier was taking names. A line of around 60-70 people - said they’d been waiting since 06:30 this morning. We started a round of phone-calls. A., the company-commander, said he would get back to us. O., the battalion-commander was in a meeting. The public complaints department said that an alert was probably in place. We also phoned the Centre for the Defence of the Individual.The mere fact of holding a phone seemed to help: slowly things started to move and the traffic-jam dispersed. Later A. phoned to say that they were on leave, and that another company has been staffing the checkpoint since the previous day. I phoned N. from the public complaints department again to tell her that there’s no alert but simply a new company. Later I spoke to A., to tell him about the morning’s situation, and to the new company-commander who’s called S.