Bethlehem and Surroundings, Thurs.Aug. 18,05 PMObservers: Gili K., Nurit S. (reporting)three guests, two Isreali students and a member of Women in Black from Paris3:30 Ezyon DCO: The waiting room was empty when we arrived but then afew people arrived and their requests for permits rejected because ofthe closure. We called Azhar who told us that he had just been in thewaiting room and taken care of all the people who were there he saidthat he can’t give any permits that are not medical permits andexpressed his regret about that.4:15 Biet Omar: We delivered Haya’s reciepts and got some new reportsto pass on to her. The people at the grocery shop were nice as usualand Gili managed to speak with them a little in her newly aquiredARabic.5:00 Al Khadr: nothing special, we just wanted our guests to see theplace and understand a little about how life is for Palestinians andthe route they must take to travel south to north and vice versa. It’spart of my “experiential education program for visitors”.5:30 Beit Jala: Traffic flowing. New reservists on duty who didn’tknow us. We asked them why the checkpoint is there, to see what theywould say, they said that they don’t know, and then after some thoughtvolunteered that it’s there in order to prevent Israelis from enteringBeit Jala by mistake and endangering themselves. I recommend askingevery shift why that CP is there, because whenever you ask, they tellyou something different. It’s interesting that they themselves don’tknow why they are there.6:00 Bethlehem CP 300: We walked through the pedestrians path (morevisitor education) and because we did that, we could see behind theconcrete cubes. We noticed between 20 to 50 detainees there, sittingand standing in the Tantur garden and under the Carob tree. The GermanCP commander was there and he rushed us to our spot far away at thebeginning of the CP. We tried chatting with him, asking him about thedetainees and he was not informative, however, when we said, “it lookslike there are about 50 detainees there” he didn’t deny it. Wenoticed the detainees were given water (we saw one of them crossingthe CP with a bottle of water). It was not clear how long they werethere, but we decided to call the army humanitarian center in anycase. We were told that they could check, but that if the detaineeswere to be arrested then they could not help. They promised to callback and didn’t. We left at about 6:30.