Irtah (Sha'ar Efrayim), Mon 14.12.09, Afternoon
16:20 – Few workers go fast through the turnstile. Buses start coming in and soon there are tens of people in the line. Everything flows smoothly at first with four open inspection posts. At 16:30 the turnstile stops and the inner doors close/ when they open a few minutes later, only two inspection posts are active and the line soon gets very long. Ten people have left for Israel and it seems to us that they are the reason for the delay since we haven't seen any people coming out to go back home. We assume that those who do the checking are busy with the people who leave for Israel. We call the DCO [District Coordination Office of the IDF Civil Administration that handles Passage permits] asking for their intervention in order to expedite the checking by sending in additional checkers. However, we haven't seen any improvement. They block our field of vision by shutting one of the doors, so we can neither see nor take pictures of the posts. 16:50 – Workers arrive in small cars. Buses no longer arrive and the line gets shorter.