24 HOURS JERUSALEM – 26’ - PART 6: 5:30-6 pm
06:00:03
… hairdresser Mousa Qawasmi lives in Beith Hanina, a district in East Jerusalem…
06:00:17
… he took a nap in the afternoon to be ready for his customers… they want to be beautiful when the evening begins… his assistants are expecting him in the salon…
06:01:05
… Mousa is one of the 800,000 residents who live in Jerusalem… their everyday life swings between normality and a state of emergency… peace is suspicious and the calm brittle…
06:01:51
… 17:02… so far it’s been a quiet day in a torn city… Jews, Christians and Muslims claim ownership of Jerusalem, Israelis and Palestinians… the conflict reaches far back into history…
06:02:10
… in 1947 the UN passed a separation plan for the British mandated Palestine… it was meant to resolve into a Jewish and an Arab state… in 1948, Israel was founded … Arab neighbours and declared war on this new state… over the course of the war 7 hundred thousand Palestinians fled from cities and villages and were displaced – to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon or the West Bank… at the end of the war Israel had extended its state territory, while East Jerusalem and the West Bank went to Jordan and the Gaza Strip to Egypt … during the 6-day war in 1967 Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem…
06:02:47
… clashes between Palestinians and Israelis are an everyday occurrence… Jim Hollander has photographed the conflict for nearly three decades… attacks, police operations and demonstrations…
06:03:57
…Mousa’s clients need an appointment to get their hair done… before he starts, he talks to his employees…
06:04:29
… one night 12 years ago changed Laurent Blum’s life … during the second Intifada two Palestinian suicide attackers struck… their target was the Café Rimon in the West of the city centre… they took 11 people with them to the deaths… Laurent was seriously injured, he and his wife Elisheva now rarely visit the city centre…
06:05:29
… Laurent was in a coma for two months … when he woke up, it was an uphill struggle back to life…
06:06:23
… 17:06 in Jerusalem …
06:06:37
… the ruins of Lifta village lie in the Western part of the city… the Arab population built their houses around the few natural springs in this area… in 1948 they had to escape from the war, were barred from returning, and the land fell to Israel… with his parents, Abu Issam escaped to the East of the city… his childhood village is just around the corner, yet unreachable…
06:08:27
…20 years ago, Franciscan father Armando Pierruci began to set up a music school at the St Saviour Monastery… for all children, regardless of their denomination… the school began with three teachers and 25 pupils… today it has four choirs and two youth orchestras… Father Armando enjoys dropping in to monitor progress…
06:11:57
… 17:42… one can buy everything from the traders in the Old city… clothes and electric devices, phones and souvenirs… fruit, vegetables and herbs for every conceivable use…
06:12:49
… the Damascus gate is the northern entrance to the old city… the rally will take place on the square in front of it…
06:13:19
…the house of Abu Issam’s parents was situated above the old village… today, many orthodox Jews live in the neighbourhood…
06:17:07
… the demonstrators demand the release of inmates of Israeli prisons… the mood is tense, prisoners are on hunger strike, their health is at risk… one of them is said to be critical… his sister is amongst the demonstrators…
06:19:25
… not far from the Damascus Gate and the rally, police on horseback are brought into position… everything remains quiet at first, but it doesn’t stay that way
06:20:32
… when the demonstration is dispersed, horse droppings remain on the square… and the Israeli flag…
06:21:32
… 17 Uhr 52 in Jerusalem …
06:21:38
… Abu Issam wants to take a twig from the garden home with him… as a reminder of the place of his childhood… of a Jerusalem of different days… the Jerusalem of the days of the British Mandate… and before that the Jerusalem of the Ottomans,… before them, that of the crusaders and the Mamluks that ruled over the city…and long before that, the Sassanian Empire, the Byzantine and East Roman Christians…
06:22:21
… in Jerusalem, the Christians build chapels and monasteries… searching for the grave of Christ, they built a church at the place of crucifixion and then argued over who would own it… Catholics or Copts… Armenian, Syrians or Greeks…
06:22:45
… or the Ethiopians, who built a monastery on the roof of the church…
06:23:20
… but before the Christians, the Romans were in Jerusalem and before the Romans the Jews owned the city… they built the second Temple and before that, the First… whatever happened before that fades into the shadows of history…
06:25:30
… in the next episode of 24h Jerusalem, Jim Hollander will sent his pictures to press agencies and out into the world… for press photographers, he says, Jerusalem is the ideal city… the conflict is bad for the people but good for the media… there is always something to report on...
