Afternoon

A line of about 20 cars going to Bethlehem. The border police take their time between cars, for no apparent reason. We talked to some people in the cars - they waited about half an hour to get through. People in cars and pedestrians who live in Jerusalem (blue I.D.s) were not allowed to pass. There were at least 3 cases of women who just wanted to visit their parents and were sent back. The commander of the checkpoint, Natan, explained to us that these are the procedures.He wouldn't let us get close to the soldiers and not even go through the pedestrians crossing. He softened a little later, said he'd try to see if a women with 4 children could cross to see her father in Bethlehem. By the time we left she was still waiting. A French couple part of a peace mission who came from Bethlehem told us that there were shots on their way into Bethlehem and the crossing south was hard. On the way back to the car we saw a group of about 30 Palestinian workers at the entrance to Beit Zafafa. They were taken off the bus to Hebron (the bus was told to leave)and the police were checking their I.D.s. Going back on Derech Hebron there was a suddent machsom on the road next to Mar Elias. It took about 8 minutes to go through that machsom.