Etzion DCL, Mon 25.8.08, Morning

When I arrived, there were according to my count 106 men and 15-20 women. As time passed more people came, of course. Most of the men had come to get magnetic cards - only a few for other purposes. The rumour had spread that now the distribution of cards was “generous,” and this caused the flow to the DCO. The complaint that no consideration was being given to the list that the Palestinians had prepared was not precise, because the team had decided to deal primarily with women, the elderly and various requests that did not involve magnetic cards. Thereby they reduced somewhat the pressure - although the men who had to wait many hours were extremely bitter.

I was impressed that until 13:00 there was no handling of men who were asking for magnetic cards. The team claimed that by this hour they had given 25 cards. It may be true because I had no way of checking whether the women or elderly who were waiting did in fact want magnetic cards, and had received them. Around 13:00 two officers came out to the waiting room to organize matters there. Their handling did “make for order” in the line, and mostly clarified to the people in it that there was no point in their waiting and they should come back on another day. At this opportunity they organized the line the line according to the urgency of requests - with those seeking renewal of cards before applicants for new magnetic cards. This should have been done much earlier.

Beyond the turnstiles only two windows were working. And this could not meet the demands. As far as understood, there was only one unmanned window, but three working windows would not suffice to lessen the pressure at this DCO.

The army argues that there is no possibility to add windows, both because of limited space, and because there are not enough soldiers to man more. We clarified that this explanation is not acceptable to us - and there is also a problem in the organisation of work at this place.

People come in the early hours of morning in order to guarantee that they will be seen the same day. The fact that those who do not succeed on their day means that they must wait at least a week for the next opportunity, and even then there are no guarantees, and this is insufferable.

All the blacklisted people who are now getting cards are assuming, of course, that the issue of a magnetic card also guarantees the receipt of work and other permits, and this has its influence on the requests to the DCO. There is therefore a basis to assume that after the “magnetic panic” is over the pressure will still not drop by much.

As representative of the “Jews” in the hallway I heard many harsh things from those waiting in line, and it is not difficult to understand why.

I wrote about what I saw and sent it to the Head of the Civil Administration, who I met there by chance. Yesterday a new commander began work, and they promised that he will invite us soon for a talk. When I left, there were 20 men in the waiting room, but I could see that more where arriving. At a normal pace the DCO can apparently deal with 60-70 people a day - but they are not all requesting magnetic cards. The number includes people renewing palm prints, recipients of medical permits, etc.

Etzion DCO, which is supposed to meet the needs of 200-240,000 people cannot stand up to that demand, and complaints about this must be submitted to every possible address.