SHEIKH SAAD, West Bank, 5 March 2007 — Sheikh Saad, a small Palestinian village perched on Jerusalem’s southeastern extremity has the misfortune to lie just inside the West Bank. Its people have few links with the occupied territory. Their close relatives, their school and even their cemetery are in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Jebel Mukabbir, from which they are now separated by a steel fence and coils of barbed wire.
“Where is the difference between here and Jebel Mukabbir?” asked Bassam Mashahri, standing on the Sheikh Saad side of an Israeli checkpoint that villagers say has blighted their lives.
“My brother, my sister and two of my uncles have Jerusalem identity papers. Mine’s West Bank, but my life is in Jerusalem.” Sheikh Saad was divided from Jebel Mukabbir after the 1967 Middle East war in which Israel captured Jerusalem’s mainly Arab eastern part, along with the West Bank, from Jordan.
The world has refused to recognize Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem. Palestinians want it to serve as the capital of a state they seek in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Patterns of daily life in Sheikh Saad were not badly disrupted until Israeli-Palestinian violence erupted in 2000. Determined to defeat suicide bombers, Israel began building giant walls and fences in 2001, cutting deep into the West Bank in some places in what Palestinians say is a land grab.
West Bankers are hemmed in by checkpoints, closures and walls, while Palestinians with coveted Jerusalem residence cards can get permits to travel between the city and the West Bank.
“Every day we have problems,” said Jalal Mashahri, 55, who owns a small grocery store in Sheikh Saad. “I can’t send anything to the other side or bring anything here. It’s not allowed.”
He said he last managed to visit Jerusalem about a year ago and now gets his goods from the West Bank, at greater cost.
Sheikh Saad lies at the end of a pot-holed road from Jebel Mukabbir. There was no other exit until a rough dirt track was dug last year, winding down to a river bed and up the other side of the valley to the West Bank town of Al-Azariyeh.
“Nobody can use this back road. It doesn’t serve the people here,” said Bassam Mashahri, 40, an unemployed father of four with kidney problems. “We have nothing to do with Al-Azariyeh.”
Villagers say the checkpoint, for pedestrians only, has become noticeably harder to cross since the back road was opened. Now they wonder if a high concrete wall, like one along a West Bank ridge to the west, will replace the steel fence.
“My aunt in Sheikh Saad died last week and we had to beg the soldiers to let us bury her in the cemetery in Jebel Mukabbir,” said Mahmoud Mansour, a 48-year-old taxi driver. “You need permission to put your own relative in the ground.”
On that occasion, the Israelis at the checkpoint relented after lengthy negotiations and Mansour acknowledged that they apply the rules with some discretion — but not predictably.
An eight-year-old girl skipped past soldiers unhindered with eggs for an uncle in Jebel Mukabbir. An old woman trudged back into Sheikh Saad after delivering cheese to her brother.
“I’m a West Banker, but they let me pass after an officer intervened. He said I must be back in an hour,” said Miriam Mashahri, 62, a white scarf around her wrinkled face. Working-age men are routinely turned back, except for the few with Israeli employers who procure entry permits for them.
Even those with medical appointments are told to get a military pass, often valid only for a day. Residents say this is a difficult, time-consuming process whose outcome is uncertain.
“They won’t let me go,” said 37-year-old laborer Ibrahim Aweisat, clutching a paper from a physiotherapy center with an appointment for the previous day. “I tried yesterday too.”
A sergeant at the Sheikh Saad checkpoint, who said he had migrated to Israel from Ethiopia in 1982, told Reuters the paper had expired and anyway the man needed to get a pass.
“Sometimes we let the old people go, but not the young men. I understand it’s a problem for them, but I’m doing my job.” Idle Palestinians linger near the checkpoint. Few in Sheikh Saad have work, although their modern-looking houses testify to the money they had once earned from jobs in Jerusalem.
“These people stay at home all day, hopeless, with nothing to do and no money,” said Mansour, the taxi driver. “Even if you open a grocery, who is going to buy from you?”
He said Sheikh Saad’s population had dwindled to around 2,000, with about 25 houses closed and empty. Anyone with a Jerusalem identity card had moved to Jebel Mukabbir, as he had.
Nobody wants to lose that card, or the residence rights and social benefits, including health insurance, that go with it. “If somebody is sick here without health insurance, he’s better off dying before he gets to the hospital. If he recovers he will never be able to pay the bill,” Mansour joked.
