14:30 Anabta

The line of vehicles extends, once again this week, beyond the junction with the apartheid road, probably fifty or sixty vehicles. But the taxi driver, standing by waiting for passengers, says it's not been like this for more than fifteen minutes.

By the time we've passed the buses, trucks, private cars, both Palestinian and Palestinian Israeli (yellow license plates), we can understand why. The two soldiers check every vehicle methodically. The line in the opposite direction is as long as ever, and there the soldiers are also checking backs of cars or trunks thoroughly. But five minutes after our arrival, the painstaking checking ceases, and the lines quickly become shorter. Cars with Israeli plates continue to be checked, or at least questioned.

15:00 Jubara

Amazingly, we are let into the seam zone village today without any fuss. It's quiet, and except for four soldiers at the barrier checkpoint at Gate 753, not a soul around. In the distance, the checkpoint that once was A-Ras is no more. Amazingly, no concrete boulders or the usual military debris seems to be left! At Abu Maher's mini market, we learn that soon the 753 checkpoint will be closed, and that it will once again function as a "Children's Gate," as in the past, for children to go to school on the other side of the separation barrier. Once Gate 753 is closed, the locked gate through which we enter and depart will become the only checkpoint for Jubara.