15:30 PM, Etzion DCL:  some 20 people waiting for magnetic cards. They had been there since 5 in the morning, they say. According to them, at 08:00 the soldier had distributed 75 numbers and things were moving pretty slowly. Indeed, we had been there half an hour and nothing happened, no one had been let in thru the turnstiles even though according to a man coming out (beaming, with a magnetic card in his hand) there not too many people inside, only 7. We made ourselves seen, exchanged a few words with the soldier in charge of the turnstiles, and all of a sudden he let all those remaining inside, provided they had a number. He turned a blind eye to an obviously old number and also promised that if till the DCL closes they will have attended to all those he had now let in, he would allow the last 4 people in even though they had no numbers. We advised them to inquire in about half an hour as to how many people were still inside and judge by that if it was still worthwhile waiting.

16:30 PM, Bethlehem Checkpoint: lots of people waiting in line (actually 2 lines since the guards make them line up that way), the queue reaching the street. We made our way through, were greeted coldly by the 2 guards, one of whom spoke what seemed like fluent Arabic, but were not sent away and even allowed to take pictures of the lines inside the hall. 5 stations were open and passage was very fast. Within half an hour, even though many more people rushed in to wait in line, there was no one outside the hall and the whole crowd had been taken care of. The guards ended up pleasantly joking with us and the Palestinians.