Bethlehem, Etzion DCL, Fri 1.5.09, Morning

09:00 - 10:30 AM, Etzion DCL: many people passed without breaks or delays. Two positions were open, but no line formed. 

There were no cases of the hand print machine not working, and no one was required to keep placing a hand on it, as was happening a month ago.  

There were no cases of soldiers raising their voices.  

Only when we were about to leave, we heard a woman soldier on the Palestinian side shouting, and a young couple came through and turned to us angrily: “It’s not right that the woman raises her voice and doesn’t even think of saying ‘please.’ In our culture it’s forbidden to talk like that to an adult! You have to tell her...”  

“You’re right, in our culture too it’s not done.”  

We approached a woman soldier who came out of the checkpoint office, but she did not respond. We phoned the Centre to complain.