Bethlehem, El Nashash, EzyonSunday,July 30, 2006 AMObservers: Sylvia P, Ofra B, Chana A(reporting)7:00 Bethlehem CP0: Hundreds of people already outside and hundreds more waiting in line to get through. Four booths manned, then one computer fails and the crowding gets bad. People report a wait of two hours (the CP opened at 5:20), others only of one hour. In any case, the Sunday crowding is unbearable. We hear a report of one man’s rib having been crushed in the line. This didn’t happen today, but only goes to show the intense crowding at the other end, which we cannot access.At the end of our watch we meet a group of some 10 teenagers, all in white T-shirts with the logo: MEET. Surprise! This stands for Middle East Educational Technology. This is a group of high school students that goes to the Hebrew U at Givat Ram for a five week computer course taught by an MIT professor presumably with Israeli pupils. 8:10 El Nashash: Many taxis, we talk to some of the people sitting under an improvised roof on a sofa and two easy chairs. The conversation is amicable. Obviously the bad news from Lebanon has not filtered through. Neither they nor we have yet heard. We don’t hear until we are home. We meet some more people, write some petitions and get into lengthy conversations. 9:20 Ezyon: No unusual crowding. A young mother (19 years old) is waiting for a permit to take her 18-day old infant to Hadassa for a cardiac operation. Turns out she has to pick it up at the Hebron DCO. What a hassle! The child is at a Bethlehem hospital…There are many other cases of petitioners, the usual menuei shabak. One father, a school principal, waits with his two teenage sons for an interview with Laurentz from the GSS. They are tense, have no idea why.The toilets reek, the fans are not turned on even after we call. People have to wait in the burning sun without a roof between the waiting shed and the turnstile.