Bethlehem (300), Etzion DCL, Tue 25.12.12, Afternoon
14.30 As soon as we arrived , we were approached by a middle-aged stone merchant. At the Palestinian DCO he was refused a permit as they said his magnetic card was invalid. At the Etzion DCO they, too, told him so. But we checked and saw that it was valid through 2014. When we phoned the office and pointed this out, they told him to go in again. We lost track of him as we were dealing with other applicants but people outside later told us that he was sent away to bring new papers.
A young man showed us the invitation from Augusta Victoria hospital for his sister to enter the following day for three-day treatment. There had been no confirmation from the Beth El office so he could not get the permit. We called and were transferred to a very helpful woman officer R. who told him to enter and she would deal with it. Inside, the soldier said R. was not present but we convinced him that she had given instructions. True enough, soon after the man entered, an army jeep drew up and R. appeared. She phoned back to us to say the permit was organized and we met the young man outside, very pleased.
He himself has been refused entry by the Security Service (and was in fact afraid to go in). He will be contacting Sylvia.
We gave Sylvia’s phone number to another man, too.
16.00 A young doctor showed us his invitation to an interview at Hadassah as he is planning to specialize in a particular field. The invitation was for the following morning but his permit had not yet arrived, though he had been there since morning. We phoned R. who said she had told him in the morning that Beth El had not received the application from Hadassah and so she was surprised that he had simply waited all day. We tried calling Dalia B. , who deals with health issues for the Administration, but there was no one in the office (she answered her cell-phone from Haifa). We could only advise him to contact the department secretary at Hadassah to explain and to phone Dalia’s office in the morning (which, she