Morning

E-Ram, 0645. Were greeted by a somewhat embarrassed Russian soldier asking "Did you come to bother us again?" He was given a terrible look by his officer and shut up. There were few people there, and the rate of passing was OK. There were also few cars.Qalandya, 0700. Similar situation, not many people. No soldiers in Tora Bora or Jaba'a. The officer in charge asked us politely to move a few meters so that we are not in their way, and we obliged. One of the soldiers who were called to us: "What are you doing here? Go, go and see what happened in Tel-Aviv! That nice terrorist passed from here !" A young man and a woman, both with a teacher's card but no permit said that they were allowed to pass daily, but today they changed the rules. A man in his 50's with wife and 3 youngsters, with an appointment to an eye hospital in Jerusalem was also not allowed to pass since he had no permit. One of the soldiers was a woman in her late 30's. She was doing her job efficiently, and looked at us with distaste. When we came closer she screamed: "If you don't go back I shall stop checking"! As we were at least 10 meters away, we did not move, and she stopped checking. After a minute the Palestinians started to complain and she screamed to them: "Tell them (us) to move! If they don't move I won't check" We soon moved away - she was playing us against the Palestinians. On the way back near the city walls towards the new gate, we saw a Palestinian transit that was stopped by police and the 10 or so young man in it were checked. We observed for 30 minutes, but there was not much we could do since the two policemen were checking the identities of the young men.