Etzion DCL, Mon 10.1.11, Afternoon
Etzion DCL, 13:50 PM: about twenty crowding in the hall and waiting, like last week and the weeks before complaining that no one has been taken in for two hours. A youngster waiting since morning grumbles that there is no possibility to buy food at this place or nearby. “We are all hungry,” he says, “especially the children.” We talked to the Humanitarian Centre.
At 14:00 pm a woman came out with a magnetic card. At 14:15 pm a man emerges with a magnetic card, but no one is taken in. Meanwhile more people have gathered, among them an old man walking with difficulty. The number of people waiting is now 25. We phone again.
A Christian youngster said that he was accompanying choristers invited to sing at a church in Galilee, for the holiday this coming Thursday. They are asking for a permit to enter Israel. Other choir members had already received permits, but these women hadn't and he asked us to help them. Another youngster accompanying the old man with difficulties to walk asked if we could get him in immediately. A Shabak black-listed complained that they won’t give him a permit to visit his hospitalized mother in Jerusalem. Again we phoned.
At 15:25 pm a man came out with a magnetic card, followed by the joyful women of the choir. At 15:30 pm ten men were let in.
From that hour till closing time six men emerged one after the other, among them a man whose wife complained bitterly that they had waited five hours inside. At 16:50 pm the DCL window closed. All those waiting in the hall, among them the exhausted old man, were sent home. Shlomit phoned someone who succeeded in talking to somebody who let the old man enter. We waited till he came out. He walked slowly, came over to Shlomit and thanked her. He was the last. All the others had already gone. On the spot remained only an older man who said that he was waiting for his grandson who had been summoned to the Shabak at 14:00, and let in at 16:00, but still had not emerged. The man asked us to find out when the grandson would come out.
When a soldier and an officer came to lock the doors and turn out the lights, we asked them to check what had happened to the grandson. They promised to find out and come back to us. We waited in the dark with the worried grandfather. They did not return. The grandfather decided to continue his wait. He didn't have a phone. We let him phone and talk with his family so that someone would come to collect him and his grandson. We left him there, in the dark and deserted parking lot, standing and waiting alone.