Etzion DCL

10.45  Only three Palestinian cars were parked but there were many Israeli ones, belonging to people who came to the Employment Office, located in the DCL area. There were no people in the DCL waiting hall, but new decorations adorned the walls: colorful maps of Alon Shvut, Elazar and Nokdim II, presenting master plans of these settlements, including Palestinians areas to be expropriated. We sent the pictures to Hagit Ofran of “Peace Now”.

A man from Yata arrived and said he had become ‘prevented’ because his surname was the same as that of a terrorist who had come from this village. After the attack that turned this man into a terrorist, all the permits of people bearing the same surname were canceled. There are about 130,000 inhabitants in Yata, and,according to him, 60,000 of them bear the same surname. He said his father was from another family but many years ago he changed his name to this one because it was a respected name. Another person said he was denied entry to Israel for being caught illegally in Israel and for holding a shotgun (for hunting birds, he says). This is not the first time we hear about the prohibition to hunt birds. We met more ‘GSS preventeds’ and they all said they had no idea why they had suddenly become prevented. We gave them our usual advice