Abu Dis & Sawahre Wednesday 23 February 2005 AMObservers: Ruthi R. & Tamar A. (reporting) The shift lasted from 07:00 to 08:4007:00 – Abu Dis, the Cliff Hotel – the hotel seems abandoned. We parked in its courtyard but were not reprimanded by the soldiers in a Border Police Jeep. Signs of life in the settlement – a vehicle bearing the word ‘Security’ drove towards the hotel.07:10 – Abu Dis – the gate between the blocks of concrete and houses on the way to the pishpash gate. A Border Police Jeep was parked by the gate, and soldiers were checking papers of some young men who had climbed around the gate via someone’s garden. Some were allowed to continue, others not.Behind the gate some men were observing events: when it turned out that some men were allowed to go on their way, everyone clambered round the gate. It’s the first time we’ve noticed this “crossing point’ - and the Jeep waiting for people who use it. It’s worth tracking whether this is a regular phenomenon at this time of day.07:15 – Abu Dis – the Pishpash gate – Crowds of children on the way to school went through the monastery or climbed around the concrete blocks, then waited for their bus or continued by foot. A few vehicles were parked at the roadside, where there’s no red and white marking because there’s no kerb-stone to paint. The same Jeep that had been parked a few hundred yards below drove up, its driver hooting for no apparent reason. It parked for a few minutes then drove off.07:30 – Al Ezariya – a checkpoint was operating, but traffic flowed unhampered.07:45 – Sawahre, the Container – There was a line of around twenty cars from the Bethlehem direction, which dispersed twenty minutes later. Pedestrians from that direction waited behind the outer turnstile and one by one crossed through the two turnstiles to the checkpoint-position where a Border Police woman soldier was standing. The checks were fast.The road from Abu Dis has been repaved, with the help of European donations, as a Transit driver told us. He also said that Sawahre residents are now getting magnetic cards bearing the words ‘East Jerusalem’; that is, they are now defined as East Jerusalem residents. He thinks it’s a good solution because work is available only in Israel, not in the Palestinian Authority. Once he worked in a restaurant near the Jaffa Gate, now he works as a driver from 04:00 until 20:30, earning no more than NIS 50 – 60 per day.We saw that the checkpoint on the road to Kedar had been opened and some trucks came through then drove away rapidly, as if being chased, towards Kedar. We didn’t see who had opened the gates and only a few minutes later a Border Police soldier ambled to the checkpoint and closed it again. A short while later, the checkpoint was reopened, and an officer – maybe the checkpoint commander, drove up in a Jeep from the direction of Kedar, and didn’t bother to close the checkpoint behind him.08:20 – Al Ezariya – There was a long line at the checkpoint, and a row of delayed taxis. A passenger who’d come from Hebron to visit his parents in a Ramallah hospital said that he had already been delayed in Sawahre and the whole trip could take three hours.The irritated driver told us that everyone has to wait until 09:00 until they can continue, that because of the checkpoint, school kids are late for school and doctors for hospital. We saw that the taxis were allowed to continue a few seconds after the IDs of some passengers were checked. The driver apparently meant that at 09:00 the Border Police soldiers leave, and then crossing is unmonitored. Beforehand everyone takes into account that they could be detained. We should check what exactly are the official “opening hours” of this checkpoint.