Bethlehem, Etzion DCO and Beit Jala, Thursday 14/4/05 afternoon Gili K., Natanya G.(reporting) We arrived at the Etzion DCO at 3.30 where one of the men waiting…he was sent away empty handed …told us that he was a guide from Bethlehem and he wanted a permit to guide in Israel too and for the past 4 years all those from that area have been refused …he said he had spoken to three other Machsomwomen about 2 weeks ago. He was reluctant to give his name. We met a doctor from Beit Jala who did get a permit but said that the way things were going he was not optimistic and thought that there would be war again. There were about 10 people waiting when we got there and the most terrible smell though not clear where is was coming from….not the toilets but maybe a burst pipe. It was sickening. A young man waiting for a permit had a pregnant wife of 4 months in Acre and was hoping to get a permit to visit her. When we left he was still waiting but because he had been told to wait so we hope that he did get it. There were 2 young men waiting since the morning for the shabak who had told them to come in. At 3.55 the windows were closed and people were told to go to the gate at the side to wait for answers. Amongst them were three men with health problems…..one needed a permit for his wife who has trouble with her heart but though we tried to help him he suddenly left. Another young man who needs dialysis said that Dalia Bassa had had his name and condition put on the computer and he gets a permit for a few months. The treatment is very expensive. The Palestinian Authority cannot afford it and it is very costly though he gets help from the UN. There was also an elderly man who had to have a heart operation the next morning and had been told to come in to get the permit but he arrived late. However Dalia Bassa dealt with the problem and both men received their permits. 4.50 Beit Jala where everything was quiet and cars were passing steadily. On the way back on the road before the checkpoint traffic was backed up and we saw two army jeeps and a police car which had stopped an Israeli car in which still sat the driver and another older man was taken to the police car ..the soldiers were dressed in civil clothing but with police hats. We did not stop. 5.15 We went on to Bethelem CP 300 having seen detainees at Tantur and thought we would go back there as we expected not to be much time at Bethlehem. In the end we spent about 2 hours at the checkpoint. When we arrived there we saw the detainees guarded by two soldiers being taken through the checkpoint There were over 20 all of them older men probably trying to get back from work. We could not speak to them. They were first taken right through and we saw that they were being checked on the road and most seemed to have been sent on their way after their documents were checked. At the checkpoint there was a long wait…. it took over 20 minutes while we were there for the first car to go through and there seemed to be an increased number of soldiers and jeeps in the area. We met an Arab owner of a restaurant in Jerusalem who had been brought in because of one of his workers who did not have a work permit. He said the man had worked for him for years and how could he fire him knowing the situation on the West Bank. We were then told not to talk to him and he was not allowed to use his cell phone. The soldiers were very aggressive and were then told not to talk to us either and to get into the jeep. There was a 19 year old girl there from Dehaishe who said she worked in an old aged Moslem home in Jerusalem and though she had no permit she had to work. This was not the first time she had been caught but she said she had no choice.We do not know what happened with her as we got involved in another problem and then she was gone. The problem was a young girl of 17 with a baby and her mother in law… we could not understand the full story but she lives in Jabal Mukaber and has a blue id…her husband is from Bethlehem and he has a green id and somewhere along the line he was detained and he had the baby’s clothing in a bag with him. We phoned (DETAILS TO BE ADDED BY SYLVIE) who was not happy to hear from us….and we found it very difficult to HEAR him though that was not his fault. He did say though that he would send someone to talk to us and a few minutes later David came up to us , very pleasant , and spoke to the girl and went and checked out her husband and sent him over to her with the necessary bag and they both went on their sad and separate ways. When we left more detainees were brought in but we did not think that at that stage we could do anything for them and left….we had thought to have a short shift after the DCO but it was not so and we only left Bethlehem after 19.30.