DCO Etzion: During the lunch break, everything gets out of hand

As Natanya has an Arabic lesson on Monday, we usually leave for the DCO towards 11.30. when the soldiers are having their break from their arduous work of doing nothing. We  do not know if there are soldiers in the offices as for the last months, even before the war, they have not made their appearance at the windows very often.But  the GSS has been  very busy leaving those Palestinians who have been called in by phone to wait from 9 a.m and beyond that so that after having had their lunch from 12 to 13.00  they will be strong enough to deal with those who have to be questioningedand to try to   convince them with various threats to cooperate with them. And then in the words of Gilbert and Sullivan " they can retire to their barracks with the feeling that their duty has been done ."

The waiting room is bitterly cold and we can only hope that the soldiers have heat for their long day. It seems that many teachers from Hebron and Bethlehem have been called in.....probably to try to find out as much as they can about their students. Also a lecturer from Hebron University. A man from Barta is waiting for his son who  comes home every two or three works and when he is in Barta he sleeps in an open shed in the bitter  cold. There are more than eight people waiting.

A young woman with small children whose husband was taken by the army 20 days ago still has no idea where he is.No one has been allowed to see him. She teaches technology...he is also a teacher and she is now with her family. We gave her the number of Leap but she said she was too scared to do anything in case it made things worse for him.  We told her to speak to them as they would do nothing without her permission.The army phoned her this morning and said she must come and, while she  was waiting  , phoned to ask if she had arrived and when she said yes, said she should wait for  twenty minutes.  Then she was  phoned and told that they  were too busy to see her and she should go home. One can only pity her state of mind and pray that in some day the wheel should come round for them. The main thing is that the GSS has got her hopes up, her small children have been left at home and she has made the trip for nothing and still knows nothing of where her husband is.

At Walleja there are five workers and two supervisors working on the new checkpoint. One wonders where they are from and how they got out of their villages.