Afternoon

We went straight to El Khader. There were hundreds (if not more) people going in both directions. It was rather late in the afternoon, so people were already packing up their makeshift kiosks near the barricades. No machsomim en route to the place and no soldiers anyplace around. (On our return trip, we saw a military jeep parked there)We met three young women (in full Moslem dress) who live in Hebron but study nursing in Ramallah. They were going home for a three day vacation. They left Ramallah at 12:00 and arrived at El Khader at 4:30. They said that they travelled from Ramallah through Kalandia to Abu Dis, crossed over the barricade there and then on to El Khader. They would then continue on to Hebron, expecting to hit 7 more machsomim on the way. When we asked about the behavior of the soldiers at the machsomim, they said, "some were pleasant, others weren't". However, they did mention that they were detained for about an hour both at Kalandia and at Abu Dis.We then followed the road along Husan. All auxilliary roads into Husan were blocked, but the main entrance was open and there was no machsom there. (there was one on a previous visit). Husan is a major center of building supplies and obviously it is in someone's interest to allow those supplies to keep flowing.We continued on the highway toward Gush Etzion until we saw a turn off to Bethlehem. We wanted to see if there was a machsom there or if we could travel that way to Bethlehem. There was no machsom, but the road was closed off and impassible. We continued on an alternate road and ended up at a machsom at the entrance to expanded Efrat (just opposite Givat Hatamar). The machsom was manned by paid security guards who were supervised by a very pleasant, helpful (secular) resident of Efrat. When we told him that we wanted to visit the machsomim of the area, he had us follow him all the way through Efrat to the exit of the town. He told us that if we were to turn left, we would find a machsom about a kilometer down the road near the entrance to Tekoa. We travelled right and found a machsom about 2 kilometers down the road on the way to Kiryat Arba. It was manned by reservists who were rather surprised by our presence. They were very forthcoming and business like. They told us that both Palestinians and Israelis use the road (and we saw some Palestinian vehicles), but that Palestinians are not allowed on the road after 7:00 p.m.