Sansana, Thu 27.12.07, Morning

Arrived at 6:10. The passage was open. According to Shlomi (the “boss”) the passage is opened every day at 4:30, and about 700 have already passed through. According to the Palestinians, it was opened today only at 5:10 (there were about 300 more waiting in the sheds).
On the whole the passage is very slow, because the Palestinians have to take off their coats, hats, belts and shoes, put them on “trays” to be checked electronically (as we were told) and hand in their different certificates to be checked at the “windows”. All this slows down the tempo. We were told that two more “windows” are to be added soon, so the check up will be more efficient. In the meantime the Palestinians are very bitter, and ironically enough, miss the soldiers, who did not ask them to take off anything and allowed them to carry into Israel their cans of water.
The Palestinians are very embittered, and though the girls at the “windows” are very polite towards them, the slow process of passing through causes hard feelings and many problems among the waiting people in the sheds. We also saw that trained dogs were added to search for explosives, mostly in cars (so we were told).