Road #60 to Beit Anoun, Ezyon DCL; August 20,07Observers: Chaya A., Ada G., 2 guests from Italy, Ada Gorni (Reporting) 7:30 AM: Beit Jala:We picked up the two Italian guests, a man and a woman. There are new traffic patterns in place and it’s complicated to get up to Beit Jala and then go out heading south towards Hebron on Road #60. 7:40 AM: AL Nashash:There is no one waiting for us. 8:00 Beit Omer:Two people give us documents and request that we retrieve documents for them from the police. From there we continue on Road #60 southwards. The traffic is as usual- here and there there a Hummer stands on the side of the road with soldiers around it. The grapes are ripening in the vineyards; red and green clusters. It’s a pleasure to behold but our hearts grieve – there is no one to sell this bounty to. 8:30 AM: Beit Anoun:There is something new! They poured more soil and rocks to block access on the western side of the road. They left a very narrow passage on that side, maybe 40 centimeters wide between the pile of soil and the side of a house. Only one person at a time can get through. How will access through there be possible once school starts? It will be unnecessarily congested! We must make sure that something is done to create a reasonable path for pedestrians and not to allow the pile of soil to be left there and turned into mud and quagmire during the winter months. 9:00 AM : Nebi Yunes:There are several people who approach us with a variety of requests: people barred from travel by the police, and others. We help where we can – the rest we refer to a lawyer or to Sylvia, as appropriate. 10:15: Ezyon DCL:People have been waiting for Maher since 9:00 AM. At 10:00 AM two people went into the office and encountered Fares told one of them that Maher is not around. Fares is not authorized to issue permits. The man should call tomorrow and see if his permit is ready. We call Fares ourselves and he tells us that Maher will arrive at noon. The man who had been waiting for for Maher called us at 12:15 and said that Maher was still not there. We called Maher on his cell phone and he promises that when he is done with lunch he’ll come and take care of those people. At 13:15 the same man calls us and told us that Maher claimed that the computer is down and therefore, he cannot issue any permits. The man was advised to call tomorrow. At 16:00 Chaya A. spoke with Ruth A. from the afternoon shift and she said that people at the District Coordination Office said that there is no policeman on duty. One Palestinian had claimed that there was a policeman there. Ruth called Maher and he said that he is just about to issue permits to the men who’ve been waiting. We did not check later on if this really happened. Maher was aggressive and vulgar during the conversation and was angry at the people who had asked for our help, and about being asked when he works and when he’ll start working tomorrow. But in the end he did respond to Ruth A.