BEthlehem CP 300, El Khadr, Beit Jala, ETzion DCO

Bethlehem and Environs Wednesday FEb.16. MorningObservers: Sylvia P.; Levana R.; Ruti R., reportingBethlehem Checkpoint 300. Three trucks carrying concrete slabs for extending the wall at Beit Jalla. The drivers -- two from Rame( an Arab village near Carmiel and one a Beduin) explain that they are waiting for completion of the security check of the area designation for today's work. Our brief conversation sounded like bits of a surrealist play. -- Settlers' cars speed by; The others pass after a brief inspection. -- About 50 people wait in line at the barrier and pass through one by one. Schoolchildren pass without waiting.Beit Jalla . No people. No cars either. Two soldiers in metal helmets stand at the barrier. One of them signals, not to photograph them.El Khader Junction. Levana and I, for whom this is the first visit to the Junction, are shocked by the third-world ambience we see. The quantities of garbage, the harsh and degrading conditions, the filthy structures which serve as shops. -- Many children are making their way to the school at the top of the hill. A blind child is helped by another child, to get through the mud and the heaps of garbage. -- People come and go. "With Abu Mazen, things will be OK," one of the passersby consoles us. A cab driver from Hebron tells us that on Friday they had to stand for an hour and a half in the pouring rain. Another complains of the soldiers' treatment of elderly, fat women. A third sounds off about difficulties at the Etzion checkpost.Etzion DCO 8:30. About 10 people wait in line. A soldier stands on the roof of the building, shouting instructions from above. People who need documents inch along on the line leading to the only open window. The police window isn't open. Sylvia tries phoning Maher, the policeman who deals with the public, but gets no answer. She phones his superiors. On our way back, Maher calls, irrate. He tells her he was doing something else and that she shouldn’t have called his superiors, but that he is now receiving.On the way out we see a number of people riding on donkeys: a traditional way of doing things or an improvised solution, to the problem of getting around?