Morning

Bitterly cold at 6.45 a.m ! At E-Ram there seemed to be no delays. At Qalandya we found a group of about 10 men who said they had been held since 6 (some said since 5) o'clock and their documents taken by the border police in a jeep that they identified. The BP weren't very responsive when we approached them but some 20 minutes later, the men were released.The long cold queue at the checkpoint was passing through at a "reasonable" rate. All children's schoolbags were being checked.To confirm reports that many taxis had been confiscated, Y brought fieldglasses and indeed identified many - mostly transits - in a faroff field.As we were told there was a machsom at Jaba'a, we went there. There was not a checkpoint, but along the road the BP were stopping very many taxis. Also we saw that the passage into Jaba'a through the tunnel under the main road has now been filled not only with sand, but two enormous boulders have been added.