Etzion DCL, Mon 2.5.11, Afternoon

Etzion DCL:  once again, as has been the case in all the recent weeks, the DCL was operating in a disgracefully bad manner.  Once again, men, women and children had to wait for hours until they were taken inside.  But once again many of them were sent home and would have to returnthe next day.  It would have been possible just to copy and re-send one of the previous reports, but we decided all the same to report once again, in the hope that the report will be read and that the management of the DCL will be improved.

14.50: Thirty-five minutes have passed and only one person has come   out. 

14.55  a young man who had received a magnetic card emerged; he   told us that he had been waiting since seven in the morning. 

15.00athird man came out and after him a fourth and fifth.  After another half an hour, at 15.35 two women who had waited since 10.00 and had been waiting since then. 

15.45two men who had been waiting since 07.00 emerged.

In total, up till then nine people came out.

A Palestinian who told us that he is a carpenter who worked for an Iraeli in Efrat asked us for help.  His employer paid him with a cheque at a bank in Jerusalem.  When he went to cash the cheque, he was told that it bounced.  After he tried several times to get the employer to pay, without success, he engaged a lawyer who sued him.  However, the employer didn’t appear and the case has been postponed several times.  We gave the Palestinian telephone numbers of  people who might be able to help him.

An elderly man told us that his son had been operated unsuccessfully in a hospital in the occupied territories, and had been transferred in a bad condition to a hospital in Israel.  The son’s mother had been permitted to be with him.  The father could not go to the hospital because he had had a liver transplant and had been warned not to expose himself to possible germs in the hospital.  He tried to get a permit for his younger son to go and help his mother to look after his brother, but his request was refused.  While we were speaking with the man, suddenly the officer, Danny, appeared, and we asked him to deal with the father’s request.  Danny spoke with us and with the people waiting in the queue.  During our conversation, he claimed, amongst other things, that we and the Palestinians were responsible for the situation in the DCL.  He gave the order for  six women who were waiting in the hall to be taken inside, and he told a group of waiting men that they would not be dealt with today but should come back tomorrow at 13.00.

One man came out at 16.00,  two more came out at 16.45, and by 17.30 when we left, the women had still not come out and the DCL had not been closed.  We were told that “the computer broke down”.   However, before we left, Danny gave the father the entry-permit for his son.