Bethlehem and surroundings, Friday 14.10.05 AMObservers: Tamar A., Efrat B. (reporter)Ezyon CheckpointIn the morning, a Palestinian phoned Chaya and told her that there is much chaos, the queus are long, they are not being let through and they are being sent back to Wadi Nar. Also in El-Khadr there is much chaos. Chaya made some calls and discovered that only people 45 years and over are being allowed through. We drove to find out what’s going on. 10:15 Tunnel CheckpointAt the checkpoint there is a traffic jam with a long queue of cars in the direction of Jerusalem. They are checking every car and thus everyone is being detained. Equality. At the El-Khadr checkpoint, tens of people are standing at the sides of the road and there are also many taxis and buses. We continued on to the Ezion checkpoint. The road was quite empty. A little bit south of the checkpoint, we saw the commander of the Ezyon DCO, Eyal, together with some soldiers. We saw that the soldiers are turning back the vehicles. Pedestrians are going through by foot, carrying their loads, babies and children. They are going up to the intersection In the hope of finding a taxi that will take them to El-Khadr or to one of the villages on the way. When we arrived, there were only some taxis. The Commander explained to us that the vehicles are not being allowed to go through because of security reason. When we asked why they are turning back people who have to go to the villages close by, like Beit Fajer – he could not provide us with an answer. After a little while, we saw that they were allowing vehicles to go south on the road, and that south of Efrat they were not forcing them to return to Said. Also, we saw that some people were being allowed to go through to the villages close by. Vehicles with permits were allowed to continue to El-Khadr and also one bus, full of passengers was permitted to go through. 11:30 El-KhadrThe people who were near the road before, were allowed to go through. Many cars and buses were waiting for people who were returning from prayers.From this experience, we believe that during the Ramadan, on Fridays, it is important to have our people at the checkpoints in Ezyon and El-Khadr. 300 CheckpointCompletely empty.