7:00 we arrive at
Sheich Saed, through Jebel Mukaber and see from a distance through the tons of fence and wire that there is a large group of men waiting to go through the C,P. but the line is hardly moving.
I was not there for two weeks , and found out now that we can hardly get anywhere near the C.P.The passing is a trikle, every 7-10 minutes one person comes through. The children pass, the grownups wait. Some who came through told us they have been waiting for one and a half to two hours, since there is one soldier writing down every detail on each person in the line.
Three soldiers stand on the side talking to each other and laughing. Nothing seems to concern them . The whole group is very uncomunicative with us.
There is a lot of tension in the air because of all this procrastination. Suddenly one of the man waiting must have tried to jump the line, and since they were waiting for so long they started hitting each other with incredible force, anger and hatred , and for a number of seconds the soldiers just did not do a thing to stop it. I was sure they would start shooting in the air, but they did not instead , they detained the two men, and stopped letting the others through for another 10 minutes . Then a lot of BP jeeps arrived , including a higher ranking officer, who I tried to talk to.
After waiting for a while he finally deigned to talk to me, rather listen to what I had to say. I suggested that in the morning when men try to get to work, an officer or an older commander be present and this very tense situation is not left to the lack of judgment of a 19 year old. No response.
We leave after an hour and a half and drive to Wadi Na'ar. There a number of buses and taxies are waiting, we speak to A. , who is always very pleasent , and within a few minutes all cars have left. There may have been some warnings that morning.