Bethlehem, Etzion DCL, Thu 26.3.09, Afternoon
Etzion DCL: the situation at the DCL is routine.
On this occasion, except those waiting for the secret service to be interrogated, there was no line at all.It looks like the bureaucracy works extraordinarily well compared to the Palestinian DCL and according to the Palestinians nearly no requests for health certificates or entry permits are asked for – all these are taken care of on the Palestinian side. Also renewal of magnetic cards is finished (until the next point of friction?) and renewal of fingerprints, about which I hear only when persons are sent away from ‘regulated’ passage points in order to renew fingerprints (Basma in Arabic).
Those waiting for interrogation are in part summoned for the second time, ordered at night from their homes to appear in the morning, and they do come – that is routine here again and again and so we find people from different villages, from different strata and functions who are summoned for interrogations of all kinds by the secret service.
We have conversations with them.
Calls to the humanitarian desk give a certain speeding-up of the interrogations.In fact, I have nothing to report – half an hour, an hour of conversation about our human situation, about the difference between racism and occupation, about education and about hope and despair.And the world goes on revolving.From Rachel passage, Bethlehem - Checkpoint 300 (Gilo checkpoint): we (our watch) only receive reports – and in the afternoon no reports or complaints about delays come in.