Morning

There was total closure of Bethlehem and the guard in charge of the checkpoint was very fierce and wouldn't let us approach within 2 meters of the barrier! But we saw a few men making their way unhindered through Tantur.Twenty Palestinian men had been picked up as "illegals" in Jerusalem. The guard wouldn't let us approach them. On the whole he wasn't hostile, though, and was beginning to release them (taking down their details and fingerprinting them).El Khadr - no buses at all and only a few pedestrians trying, against all hope, to persuade the soldiers to let them through. At the junction, we spoke to some men who had walked from Husan (whose exit had been blocked to vehicles) and further villages. As one said, they don't know from day to day what conditions will prevail so they keep trying. But then a big tender drove up and quickly filled with passengers to go to Bethlehem! So it seems that despite all the closures people feel confident of getting through somehow. (They reckoned it would take half-an-hour to reach Bethlehem.) Entrance to Husan - an enormous rock blocking it. On our way back, we found a police jeep and a lot of police personnel at the Husan-El Khadr junction. The soldiers told us that two explosive devices had been found on electricity poles the previous day.