DCO Bethlehem and HWAY 60 February 9 2004. Watchers: Y. Sh.(reporting) and Sh.Sh. We arrived at 10 am for a meeting that Sh.Sh. had set up the previous week with Rachel the policewoman who is stationed at the DCO. The window was closed and telephones here and there brought out to the gate the person who presented himself as her commander. He was very aggressive and only at 11 a.m. we met with Rachel and then when the army fence separated us. She said that the Palestinians received excellent treatment from her, above and beyond what is called for. The truth is that there have been no complaints about the quality of the service but about the fact that it exists. We complained about the hours of the opening of the police window about which there have been complaint for the last few weeks. At the bottom of the sign do appear the hours of opening, Sunday to Monday from 9-11 and we made sure that this time it was pasted on so that the hours could be seen. Rachel explained that when she is dealing with one person she has to do so inside and therefore cannot deal with a second person at the window. We met two people who had to approach the police window as they had to pay a fine at Wadi Joz, an entrance permit to Jerusalem and because the police window there was closed and not receiving people. The window was open today until 12am. At the DCO there were about 100 people waiting for magnetic cards or permits. Case No 1: A letter sent by an Israeli partner dated Feb 9th was declared out of date and the partner was requested to send a fax with today’s date. Why? Because. And then the partner sent another fax but the soldier in the sentry box claimed that the fax was not working. The fax was sent again but the man only received his permit at 3pm. Another man received a permit to enter Jerusalem from 05.00-19.00 but he received it at 11 am (“half of the day is gone” – he said when he went out). There were many people sitting outside the stinking hut in the direction of the gate of the camp. The smell of sewage is again evident. In the afternoon a Captain arrived and told them to move in the direction of the sewage or to go into the hut so that:” they won’t explose over him”. So what if they had to sit in the sewage. By 12 o’clock only 7 people had received the permits. Even though two windows were dealing with them from 10 to 12 and we saw soldiers on the other side of the windows. About 13.00 we drove in the direction of Beit Omar to take the results of MRI test from Ramallah to Hadassah. A military jeep was at the checkpoint dealing with two people. Near El-Arub we saw another jeep. We saw 3 soldiers one of them cocked his rifle. The soldiers warned us about the children who returning from school because the previous week a Molotov cocktail had been thrown. After this I went to speak to the children so that it would be clear that we were not there so as to chat with the soldiers. The children claimed that they had done nothing. The soldiers were very tense and very sure that they fully armed and with their guns cocked are the defenders and the children with their satchels the attackers. El Khader: Another IDF jeep and another warning about the children. We went to see the state of the dirt embankment, and it has hardened and on top of it is a steel plate to help those crossing. The barbed wire has been moved to the side but is still an obstacle. When we left the soldiers were gone. We went to Hadassah and took the tests results there and then went home.