Bethlehem, Tuesday 11-10-05 PMObservers: Ruth O. and Ilana D. (reporting)From 2:00 till 5:30 PMAbu Tor, DCL Etzion, Beit UmmarHaving seen it from above, we went to inspect a newly constructed road through the Gehinnom Valley. It is blocked off by huge rocks, but looks as if it will serve the future settlers of Silwan.At the entrance to the Tunnel Road there was a flying CP manned by reservists, no detainees. We took a Palestinian woman with heavy loads to the Efrat junction and she was extremely grateful. At the Ezyon DCL a rather large crowd waited for the computers to overcome their crash. Maher was not there, nor was there a note stating that he would be absent. We were unable to reach him, wanting to verify that the DCL of Hebron is indeed closed for four months. We were told that Azhar is on vacation; someone said that he was in the hospital and someone else proclaimed that he had left – all unverified rumors. A 50-year old clergyman who has been working for the last ten years in a church in Jaffa has to renew his permit every two weeks. He is not allowed to stay overnight in Israel, nor is he allowed to drive a car to visit the members of his Church in Ramleh, Lydda, etc. He is in possession of a card issued by the Ministry of the Interior that he is a High Ranking Church Official, but it doesn’t help him at the DCL. Another person who work for the Franciscan Church and has to travel to Jerusalem to buy oil, candles, etc. had applied two weeks ago and was told to go away. When we insisted he was told that the Church should apply for him again, his application was lost (“They threw it in the wastebasket,” observed the bystanders). Moti was consulted and, although he was not on the premises, promised to help and told us to send the man with a new application on Sunday at 3:00 PM. He said that he was sure that all cases would be dealt with before 5:30 and that soon the computers would work again. The fact that people wanted to be home before the end of the fast at 5:15 didn’t seem important to him.We left for twenty minutes to Beit Ummar to deliver Haya’s documents to Abu Nassim and found him relaxed and smiling in a wonderful mood. He told us that he had been a bus driver for forty years and ‘knows everyone’. He was aware of the practice of people taking money to pay fines and then faking the stamp and signature. When we returned to the DCL all Palestinians were gone.No army presence at the Ezyon junction and Al-Khadr. There was no queue before the tunnels and the flying CP had disappeared. It looked as if indeed most Palestinians had managed to get home before the end of the fast.We were told that the army has destroyed the ‘illegal’ access road to the Mosque in Wallaje.