the wall

Yesterday, a Friday, I had the plan to go into Jerusalem to buy some guitar strings and maybe a sweater (it’s starting to get chilly here at nights, which is welcome). I took my guitar along with the thought to do a bit of strumming on Ben Yehuda street, a type of pedestrian promenade.
I arrived at the checkpoint at 9 am to find it choked with Palestinians trying to cross in to Israel so they could perform their Friday Ramadan prayers at Al Aqsa al Sharif (the dome of the rock). There were a few thousand people milling around, pressing up against the barrier formed by a solid row of IDF armoured trucks and jeeps, the soldiers in with their flack jackets, M-16s and earpieces sitting on top of the trucks, fingers on triggers. No one at all was getting across, and no one seemed to know if the crossing would be opening in a minute, an hour, ever. I knew Israel would be closing the crossing that evening at the start of Yom Kippur, but finding it closed in the morning was a surprise to me and the crowd in which I floated and bobbed in surges towards the barrier, then back away and back again.
I took a few photographs and was pleased to have the assistance of two fine young photographers: Mohammed and a little girl whose name I didn’t catch. So here are some of their pictures, and some of mine.