Bethlehem and surroundings, Monday, 27.3.2006, AfternoonObservers: Shlomit S. Yael S. (reporting) Closure routine… The Palestinians are not moving unless they have no choice. Today we met more tourists than Palestinians. Ezyon DCO: A Palestinian who was invited by the GSS arrived one hour ahead of time and waited outside the gate. The DCO goes on issueing magnetic cards and permits “as usual”. There is only one little difference: it is done without seeing the Palestinians. They turn in their requests to the Palestinian DCO at Bethlehem. The requests are delivered to the Israeli DCO, which sends back the answers to the Palestinian DCO, and this is where they get it back. This creates a few “little problems” such as: medical requests are turned down even before they were checked by the health authorities, or they do not give any reasons why the requests were turned down, and we have no way of checking it. Road 60: The road blocked to all the villages who have enter it. The exits are blocked to vehicles in different ways: in El-Arub even the pedestrians’ exit narrows down; the yellow gate is very conspicuous, in addition to the concrete blocks and the earth mounds. Beside everything mentioned above, there are the pillbox and the Hummer, which always stand there. The massage is clear!!! Road 60 is blocked even to the southern areas, so that in order to get from Bet-Omar to Seir one has to travel through Seir road which takes 3 hours instead of 20 minutes on road 60. Beit Omar: There is a manned pillbox but vehicles and pedestrian go in and out with no checking at all. Bethlehem CP: Only one position was manned because of the computer problems. A group of over 30 tourists was waiting to get into Jerusalem, and a group of 10 Palestinians was waiting to get into Bethlehem. Another group of Palestinians arrived and it began to be stressful. We called Roni who took care of it immodestly, and within 10 minuets another window was opened. At some point one of the doors was left open, and a soldier’s reaction was: “close the door, do you want to be killed???” This was the soldier’s reaction because his friend was stabbed in Kalandia.Going through we met two of the Ecumenical group. We heard aloud voice coming from the loudspeakers: “go backward”, so we asked them go and see what happened. An older Palestinian, who was dressed like a “Hagg”, came out and said: “this is the first time that I am going through this point and I hope it will be the last…” He felt very humiliated