Bethlehem (300), Etzion DCL

Bethlehem Checkpoint (Ronit reports)

6:30 - a lot of people and cars outside, but it is not very crowded. Our acquaintance is not yet sitting in his usual place. Inside there are 5 open windows, the hall is full. At windows 3 and 4 there is pressure and pushing, but a few minutes later policeman A. arrived, opened the gate and let people through till the pressure decreased. Then he would do this occasionally, when needed. It seemed that window 5 served as the Humanitarian Gate, because mostly women and older people passed through. All and all the ambiance was relaxed most of the time.

6:45 – our acquaintance arrived, greeted us and said that relatively it is fine today.

7:05 - Y. the kidney transplanted child and his mother arrive. He is well and they are pleased. A little later it began emptying. At 7:15 they closed window 5 and the partition and a few minutes later they closed windows 3 and 4. There was no more pressure and 2 windows were enough.

7:25 - we left. Hannah and Goni continued to a meeting with Jamila (purchasing olive oil and olives) and to DCO.

Etzion DCO (Goni reports)

8:10 - Surprisingly, there were only a few applicants today at the first hours and they were all in the first stages of inquiries. We responded to each with the help of a local man who volunteered to translate for everyone into Arabic, with lots of patience, our explanation of the terms of submitting the required documents for applications for removing GSS prevention. As usual, we sent the police prevented people to Haya.

Only around 9 o’clock some arrived, who had prepared in advance the required documents for applications to remove GSS preventions. For them we prepared power-of-attorneys so we could handle their cases and we wrote requests for orderly submission in the DCO window. We left when we were done, at 9:45