Morning

We drove south along the snow-free tunnel-road after having been stuck for more than an hour in Down-Town Jerusalem where piles of snow along the streets prevented a proper flow of traffic. Not so beyond Gilo where the super highway was swept clean meticulously, even the escape lane to the right of the yellow line. At the Etzion checkpoint no cars going south were checked and a nice young soldier manned the checkpoint to the north, but there was hardly any traffic. No line and no detainees. We introduced ourselves and he seemed pleased with our presence.At El Khadr, we saw that a few buses from Hebron had dropped their passengers andwere waiting for people coming from Bethlehem. Apparently the soldiers had been there earlier, but had left. Taxis waited on the other side of the long trudge through the mud and wet snow. Some boards had been put over a few treacherous holes. An improvised stand had collapsed under the heavy load of snow. The school had been closed due to the inclement weather.At the checkpoint on the road near Beit Jalla an extremely friendly reservist volunteered that he didn’t like his job, but unfortunately had to do it. The Palestinian cars were checked, but not held up and again, there was no line.At Checkpoint 300 our old ‘friend’ Danny shouted at us to keep a distance and remain behind the stop sign. When we asked the driver of one of the vehicles coming from Bethlehem how long the wait had been, Danny became angry and threatened to call the blue police to have us arrested for ‘blocking traffic’, i.e. the one approaching car. The few pedestrians venturing north were let through and we saw only one car in southward direction.