Morning

We started our shift at Etzion. Several buses came through from the Hebron area. The soldiers asked people to disembark, checked their IDs and those who had authorization were allowed to go on to Bethlehem. Those who did not were sent back. They mostly went on around by foot towards Bet Fajar and then back to the road leading to El Khadr. The soldiers saw them and one of them yelled for them to return. When they did not respond, just let them go. When the second bus came, the soldiers responded positively to Chaya's request to move the line so the passengers would not have to walk through water. Another bus let off its passengers before the checkpoint and a hoard of about 70 people went around by foot without being stopped. On the next bus, a man who claimed to have a store in Bethlehem was sent back because he had no authorization. He went around by foot, but was stopped by a soldier who, after listening to him for several minutes, let him move on. From there we went to El Khadr where suddently, everything changed. There were 3 border police and a female soldier there and about 10 Palestinians whose IDs had been taken. The soldier in the jeep explained that the curfew inside would be lifted from 9:00- until 16:00, but the soldier outside didn't know this. They also told us there was still a closure and it was forbidden for anyone to move out. When we asked what would happen to the people let through at Etzion, they just said that that was Etzion and this is El Khader. It also seemed they had just gotten new orders about the closure. One Palestinian had authorization to bring a gas truck, but he was nevertheless not allowed to pass. Then, to our surprise we found that Dani, the soldier from Checkpoint 300 was one of the soldiers. He pretended not to know us and then for no reason decided we were "bothering him in his work" and called the blue police on us. We had to leave.From there, we went to Checkpoint 300 which was totally empty except for a few border police and soldiers from Bethlehem. We spoke to an Arabic-speaking soldier Amid, who asked to stand back about 100 meters from the checkpoint. He also wouldn't let us stand any closer, claiming it was for our safety!