Bethlehem. Tuesday PM, 10-1-06 Observers: Yael Y., Ilana D. (reporting) guest Rozan S. From 2:00 till 5:00 PMEid El Adkha – there was no need for our weekly visit to Abu Nassim in Beit Ummar with Haya’s paid fines.CP 300. Mostly to enlighten our guest who is a tourist guide we drove around the new Rachel Crossing and towards the gate to the entrance of Rachel’s Tomb which was opened for an Egged bus. Very few vehicles and occasional pedestrians entered and exited the ‘terminal’. No queue whatsoever, the place looked almost deserted.At the entrance to the tunnel road cars were checked, but there were no detainees.At the Ezyon DCL there were only Christian applicants who all seemed to be receiving the papers for which they had applied. All permits, as has been the case in the last couple of weeks (or months) are for humanitarian cases only. Apparently merchants and workers do not even bother to apply which may explain why the place is not longer as crowded as it used to be. A woman with two sick children (cancer patients in Hadassah) was told to wait since there was some mix-up, but she made sure her husband would be allowed to accompany her children and get a permit. We noticed that women too wanted to have magnetic cards to prove they are ‘clean’. A Jew with a knitted skullcap jumped the queue and demanded permits for his workers in Elazar, he was refused and angrily returned empty-handed. Initially the clerk had spoken to him in Arabic, but was told off, informed that he was Jewish and should be addressed in Hebrew.The Ezyon CP was manned, no detainees.At the entrance to Efrat-North and El-Khadr South the blue police was checking vehicles.El Khadr looked bleak, very few cabs most of the stall-owners not working and the few people dressed in festive clothes. Some cabdrivers asked for the Moked-number in case they needed it. They complained of lack of work. A vendor asked us to get him a work permit. The amount of garbage is even more obvious when the place is empty.There was a long queue towards Jerusalem before the tunnel CP. It is still not clear what construction is planned for the area. We turned right towards Beit Jalla and found the DCO-CP unmanned with a steady flow of cars. This explains why only few vehicles cross via CP 300.