Bethlehem, Etzion DCL, Sun 15.6.08, Afternoon
and CP 300: When we arrived we were told that Tedsa worked very efficiently until noon time. There were only forty people waiting in the waiting room. There was one person waiting for the General Security Service (GSS). He arrived at noon and was called in within an hour.
Have you heard of the law banning the repairing of cars in the C areas?
So today we met a lawyer who came with his client and said that the army arrived at his mechanic shop and impounded four vehicles without giving any receipts. This seemed so serious that I immediately called Abu Villan, but then we found the number of the Hebron Police department and the place where the vehicles were taken and called them. The Israeli owners must contact the police and pay a fine for fixing cars at a Palestinian mechanic. And it’s all legal.
Bethlehem, CP 300: The strangest story of the day is told to us by a Palestinian who tells us that his ID and magnetic card were confiscated at CP. According to his account he arrived in the morning and like hundreds of Palestinians offered his identification card and his magnetic card, but these were never returned to him. Confiscating an ID is a serious matter and so I called the humanitarian center and the checkpoint office to try and figure out what happened.
Initially I was told at the checkpoint that no such thing has happened. I called them again and asked them to perform a more through investigation. Since all activity at the checkpoint is recorded the policemen scanned the videos and indeed the person arrived and complained that his ID was confiscated. There is no video of him giving the ID and so, really, it was a waste of police time.
16:00 PM, Etzion DCL: Meanwhile, at the DCL, the line hardly moves. There were forty people waiting. We left for a while to Beit-Omar and when we returned a little after five there were still 28 people waiting. At 17:30 a soldier came out and said that that was it and they were closed for the day. At 17:40 the last Palestinian came out with the coveted magnetic card.
28 Palestinians went home after another day of wasting time.
18:00 PM, Bethlehem, Rachel Crossing: We thought that there would be nothing to see at CP 300, but there were still Palestinians coming home. Two checking booths were open and a line of people stood in front of them. A private security guard kept the lines organized and the waiting time was about 15 minutes.
Hadas said that fifteen minutes of waiting every day is a lot.