Morning

6:30 AM: Checkpoint 300 (Bethlehem) was crowded, the holiday (and curfew) is over and there were many pedestrians who passed easily. Under Tantur ten Palestinians were held up. On the way to Etzion Junction we noted an increase in the number of people on donkeys, a few dozens along the road. On the far edge of Efrat we saw rows of new caravans (newly settled?). The soldiers at Etzion refused to communicate, and didn't even say "Shalom", after having eyed us suspiciously. New tactics? They went about their business efficiently and managed to process even the large buses with more than fifty passengers in less than 15 minutes. All young men had to get off the busses. The soldiers went in to check the women and older men first before proceeding to scrutinize the papers of the men lined up along the curb. Some of the men - those without proper permits - were not allowed to continue on the bus, but were not kept and it was not quite clear whether they were about to try to proceed via the woods. We took a girl-student on her way to Bethlehem in the car to El Khadr. She wanted to pay us for the trip. El Khadr was busy, the people were happy that there were no soldiers around, but the taxi-drivers complained again about the cruelty of the Border Police at Wadi Nar. The Principal of the Highschool for girls told us that a couple of days ago about ten soldiers had entered the premises and gone into theclass rooms with drawn rifles, scaring the girls. They had claimed they were looking for Israeli girls and she thought they had meant us, but that none of us had been there for a couple of weeks. "Please report this incident," she begged. A Border Police jeep meanwhile had approached, again our greetings were not returned. It left after a couple of minutes. At the checkpoint near Beit Jalla there was no queue and friendly soldiers checked the papers quickly. No car had been held up. At Checkpoint 300 there were fewer people, and no Palestinians were being held up. There was another BP-jeep on Hebron Road at the turninto Gilo facing North, presumably checking Palestinians from Beit Tsefafa.