Training new EAs

City tour for new EAs

We are training the Ecumenical Accompaniers from all over the world who will carry on when our three-month assignment ends next week. We gave a brief tour of Jerusalem to those of the incoming group who had arrived by Tuesday afternoon, and now we are providing on-the-job training for those who will serve in the Jerusalem placement.

Soldiers we met at Damascus Gate

In meetings at our house in East Jerusalem, we explained our procedures and priorities to the new EAs.

Training meeting at the house

Nabeel al-Kurd briefs new EAs

We also took our replacements to the Qalandiya Checkpoint for our three-hour monitoring duty, and met with some of our contacts, including Nabeel al-Kurd in Sheikh Jarrah, who has had Israeli settlers living in the front of his house for four years. For three years he had International Solidarity Movement volunteers in a tent adjacent to the house to protect his family from settler harassment.  He says the settlers threw chemicals on the volunteers and burned their tent. Police ordered him not to speak about it, but he says, "I'm not afraid to talk."

Abed Shlode showing the Silwan prayer tent

We also took the new EAs to the Friday prayer demonstration at Silwan, a Palestinian community near the Old City that is threatened with house demolitions to make way for an Israeli archaeological park. Abed al-Halim Shlode told them: "We will stay here whatever they do. Even if they destroy our homes we will live in tents."

Praying in front of the Silwan tent

EAs head back to the Old City.
Israeli flag on left marks settler house. Al-Aqsa mosque at end of street

We were pleased to find that there were no restrictions on access to worship at Al-Aqsa mosque today. We saw thousands pouring out of the city at the end of prayers.

Worshipers leaving Lions' Gate after Friday prayers