Translation: Yael Bassis-Student
Tura-Shaked 0720-0750
Many pedestrians, more than usual on Saturday at this time of day. People cross from one side to the other, relatively quickly.
Only a few vehicles. For some reason the vehicle lane in the direction of the West Bank is blocked, but since there is so little traffic, vehicles on both direction can use only one lane.
Two individuals come to us with questions regarding passage permits. Despite Rachella's fluency in Arabic, we find it difficult to understand what is the problem, but as we noticed a week ago it is quite clear that people encounter difficulty in regard to passage permits (following a period of grace at the beginning of the olive picking season).
Barta'a-Reihan 0800-0850
There is less traffic of pedestrians crossing to the West Bank today. Many people come out of the terminal in the direction of the Seam Line zone, but the pace is slow. We are told that there are many more inside the terminal, great delay in passing through. The reason for that is unclear: An out-of-order machine? Unusual number of people? Those coming out claim that they had to wait inside for about half an hour. We've decided to follow up some of the people and found out that they were right; Passage has taken half an hour.