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lennart
07-03-03, 00:30
IDF taking over areas in Gaza used to launch
Qassam rockets

By Amos Harel and Tsahar Rotem, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and Agencies

Approximately 100 IDF tanks and armored vehicles were approaching the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip Thursday night, to take over areas used to launch Qassam rockets and try to prevent the future launching of the rockets. It is unclear how long the operation will last.

Thursday's operation comes less than one day after a previous 9-hour-raid in the camp, in which eleven Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed.

Earlier Thursday, three Qassam rockets landed in the Negev town of Sderot.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/269897.html

lennart
07-03-03, 14:33
En herbezet strategisch punten in de Gaza strook, net op tijd voor de aanval op Iraq.

nouwra
07-03-03, 14:49
Tot ik mijn laatste adem heb uit geperst zal ik de zionist vervloeken die baad in het bloed van Palestijnse broeders en zusters.
Die vervloekte Boesj die verezen is uit de as van sajitan zal nooit vrede kennen zolang hij zijn schrikbewind tegenover onschuldige moslims blijft voeren.

lennart
07-03-03, 15:37
Vervloeken heeft helaas zo weinig zin.

"The cycle of violence begins again"
Printed on Thursday, March 06, 2003 @ 12:23:00 EST ( )

By Ash Pulcifer
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)

(YellowTimes.org) – Yesterday's suicide attack on a crowded bus in Israel was unfortunately quite predictable. It was predictable because for the past two months, Palestinian militants have refrained from launching suicide attacks, but the Israeli government has not responded in kind. Instead, the Israeli government continued its repressive policies perpetuated upon the Palestinians, killing many innocent people; for example, just last Monday the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) caused the death of a pregnant 33-year old Palestinian woman and her unborn child. As is often the case, the IDF blew up a militant's home and the explosion also caused destruction of the house next door, where this woman was killed by falling masonry. So now, after two months of violence against Palestinian innocents, another bomb has gone off and there are 15 more broken Israeli families and 50 more whose loved ones were injured in yesterday's Haifa blast.

For the past two months, Palestinian circles have questioned the results of suicide attacks inside Israel's pre-1967 borders. This began two months of "relative calm." There was the occasional, but deadly, Kassam rocket fired out of the Gaza Strip, but the most devastating attacks toward Israeli civilians subsided. Yet in this period of "relative calm," the developments in the Gaza Strip were anything but "calm."

Despite every indicator pointing in the opposite direction, the Sharon government and the Israelis who support it fail to see that constant invasions of the Gaza Strip do nothing to reduce terrorism. Each time the IDF carries out an operation in the Gaza Strip, they kill more innocent civilians. Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel charges that civilian casualties "run to about 30 percent of the total" when the IDF swarms into the territories. By killing so many civilians, Israel is not reducing the anger and hatred toward its occupation; what Israel is doing is increasing the amount of hatred toward Israelis, and making it much easier for civilians to be recruited as militants who would willingly give their lives to cause some sort of damage to Israel and the innocent Jews who represent it.

It is not hard to see why an individual who loses his family to the IDF would take up arms against anything that seems to be responsible for his hatred. Given the superiority of the Israeli military, often this hate is directed at innocent Israelis. There is also no incentive (other than moral concerns that dissipate in the face of anger) to attack the Israeli military instead of civilians: the reprisals from Israel are the same. When recently Palestinian militants targeted Israeli soldiers and successfully blew up an Israeli tank, Palestinian civilians suffered the same reprisals from the IDF as they would have if these militants instead killed civilians. Therefore, many militants choose to attack whichever is an easier target and this results in the deaths of Israeli civilians. The first suicide attack in Israel did not take place until the early '90s and the Palestinians are loath to go back to the days before this. During the two decades after the 1967 occupation, many Palestinians felt helpless against the brutalizing occupation. Now they finally feel as if they have an outlet for their hatred.

But the use of violence works both ways. Israelis who lose family members and friends to suicide attacks become more supportive of Sharon's violent policies, and unleash their hatred through their support of IDF offensives into the Palestinian territories. Since many members of the Israeli Defense Forces have also lost loved ones from Palestinian attacks, it makes it easier for them to cause untold destruction to innocent Palestinian lives as is evident through Israel's illegal policy of forcible transfer and collective punishment. As Amnesty International states, "Members of the IDF who commit grave human rights violations and war crimes, such as killing children and other unarmed civilians, recklessly shooting and shelling densely populated residential areas or blowing up houses on top of people and leaving them to die under the rubble are not brought to justice and held accountable for their acts."

Israelis and Palestinians hate to hear the term "cycle of violence" because it incriminates both sides equally. But a cycle of violence is exactly what is occurring. Already, the Sharon government is planning its retaliation against the latest attack, and they will receive wide support from Israel's population because everyone feels that some sort of action must be taken in response. Yet all Israel's retaliation will do is create more Palestinian suffering and thus produce more Palestinian militants eager to rise up and strike at the heart of Israel.

This cycle of violence will continue until one side takes the bold initiative in offering an olive branch. Considering that the Israeli state is much more organized and politically advanced than the undeclared Palestinian one, Tel Aviv must take the first and hard step toward reconciliation. As long as Sharon stays in power, however, olive trees will continue to be destroyed and, as time progresses, there may be no more olive branches left to give.

nouwra
07-03-03, 15:54
long live the demo-fucking-cratie

De enige manier om mijn frustratie in bedwang te houden is door te vertrouwen op het Alziende oog van Allah de Verhevene.

Eens zullen ze de hitte van de hel op hun naakte huiden voelen :jammer:

lennart
07-03-03, 16:00
ILA demolishes 16 illegal houses in Kafr Qasem

The Israel Lands Administration yesterday demolished 16 illegal houses in Kafr Qasem as part of the government's crackdown on illegal building in Arab communities.

Kafr Qasem local council head Sami Isa complained of an acute housing shortage due to a government refusal to approve any new building plans. "People are suffocating here, what can you expect them to do? They have no alternative but to build illegally," he said.

Some 250 police, border police and mounted police backed by a large amount of riot control equipment entered the town before dawn to safeguard the demolition work. A number of residents who confronted the police and ILA inspectors were detained for questioning.

The demolished structures were under construction and two of them were inhabited already.

Although the residents have been negotiating with the authorities for several months in an attempt to reach an agreement, the police and ILA gave them no advance warning of the demolition. Eyewitnesses said one of the houses was knocked down with all its contents inside it, after its owner was arrested.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=268363&contrassID=2
---------------------

Let wel dit is BINNEN Israel. Kom maar op Jaja met je genuanceer.

jaja
07-03-03, 16:45
Geplaatst door lennart
ILA demolishes 16 illegal houses in Kafr Qasem

The Israel Lands Administration yesterday demolished 16 illegal houses in Kafr Qasem as part of the government's crackdown on illegal building in Arab communities.

Kafr Qasem local council head Sami Isa complained of an acute housing shortage due to a government refusal to approve any new building plans. "People are suffocating here, what can you expect them to do? They have no alternative but to build illegally," he said.

Some 250 police, border police and mounted police backed by a large amount of riot control equipment entered the town before dawn to safeguard the demolition work. A number of residents who confronted the police and ILA inspectors were detained for questioning.

The demolished structures were under construction and two of them were inhabited already.

Although the residents have been negotiating with the authorities for several months in an attempt to reach an agreement, the police and ILA gave them no advance warning of the demolition. Eyewitnesses said one of the houses was knocked down with all its contents inside it, after its owner was arrested.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=268363&contrassID=2
---------------------

Let wel dit is BINNEN Israel. Kom maar op Jaja met je genuanceer. .... u vraagt, wij draaien ... ;)
Illegale bouwsels worden elders in de wereld ook afgebroken ... soms zelfs met de mensen erin ...

Maar je hebt gelijk. Dit is gewoon fout van de Israelis. En het is bovendien OERDOM! Van deze mensen hadden ze helemaal geen last, ja zelfs, deze mensen waren meestal loyale burgers .... Deze regels mogen ze van mij ook gaan toepassen op kolonisten-nederzettingen ... (Ben Eliezer had soms wel eens een goed idee!!) Begin nu eerst maar eens met die die zelfs volgens Israelisch recht illegaal zijn ... zijn we vast wel een paar maanden bezig ... wordt vast ook door de PA gewaardeerd en helpt misschien die kruipende gesprekken in Londen wat op de been.

lennart
07-03-03, 16:49
Geplaatst door jaja
.... u vraagt, wij draaien ... ;)
Illegale bouwsels worden elders in de wereld ook afgebroken ... soms zelfs met de mensen erin ...

Maar je hebt gelijk. Dit is gewoon fout van de Israelis. En het is bovendien OERDOM!

Je stelt me nooit teleur :)

Je weet natuurlijk wel welke duisterse motieven, die ik niet kan bewijzen, ik hierachter zoek.

jaja
07-03-03, 16:55
Geplaatst door lennart
Je stelt me nooit teleur :)

Je weet natuurlijk wel welke duisterse motieven, die ik niet kan bewijzen, ik hierachter zoek. ah.. ik ben zo voorspelbaar!! je weet dat ik die duistere motieven weer zal verwerpen ... voorzover ze op de gehele israelsiche maatschappij worden geprojecteerd. Dat een paar kolonisten het een goed idee vinden om op den duur te gaan wonen geloof ik direct ... en datz e wat graag misbruik maken van legale trucs ook. Zoals dat ook elders in de wereld "gang und gebe" is. Waarom gaan in zuid-Afrika en Brazilië en overal de bulldozers door de sloppenwijken ...

lennart
07-03-03, 21:38
Geplaatst door jaja
ah.. ik ben zo voorspelbaar!! je weet dat ik die duistere motieven weer zal verwerpen ... voorzover ze op de gehele israelsiche maatschappij worden geprojecteerd. Dat een paar kolonisten het een goed idee vinden om op den duur te gaan wonen geloof ik direct ... en datz e wat graag misbruik maken van legale trucs ook.
Zoals dat ook elders in de wereld "gang und gebe" is. Waarom gaan in zuid-Afrika en Brazilië en overal de bulldozers door de sloppenwijken ...

Een paar kolonisten? Ik sluit me meer bij de volgende woorden aan.

Already yesterday night we heard about the Kafr Qasem demolition spree.
We are in contact with Qafr Qasem
activists who are considering what is the best protest action.
We hereby forward you the message about it of Dorothy Naor who located it on the Ha'aretz website.
She calls it "Eli Ishay’s parting gift as Minister of the Interior".
But maybe, it's the new government's "message to Arab Israelis".





A WAR GOVERNMENT

Sharon, Liberman, Eytam, Mofaz, Netanyahu and Lapid -
this is the most dangerous government Israel ever had.

This government expresses Sharon's real intentions.
If the Labor Party had joined the Sharon Government,
it would have served as a fig-leaf.

This is a war government.
A government of the settlers and their helpers.
A government that does not even pretend to seek peace -
and, therefore, a government that will aggravate the security situation,
deepen the economic crisis and widen the social rift.
Gush Shalom ad in "Haaretz" 28/02/03

lennart
07-03-03, 22:08
Geplaatst door Kideon
Vreemd he ? na die aanslag deze week.
width=1 height=1

Lees dat stukje uit de yellowtimes nou maar eens.
Btw. Amira Hass heeft de internationale pers prijs van UNESCO gewonnen :lole: :lole: :lole:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=270094&contrassID=1&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Ik hoorde overigens dat haar baan op de tocht staat, dus ik hoop dat deze prijs haar weer krediet zal geven.

Donna
07-03-03, 22:10
Geplaatst door Kideon
Vreemd he ? na die aanslag deze week.
width=1 height=1


Vreemd he, zo'n aanslag nadat Sharon onverminderd doorgaat met het vermoorden van Palestijnen, juist in een periode dat daar een discussie plaatsvindt over het stoppen van aanslagen.

De zelfmoordenaars zijn Sharon's grootste troef op weg naar een 'transfer', en het ontbreken daarvan geeft hem geen goede aanleiding tot versteviging van de militaire aanwezigheid in Gaza ter voorbereiding daarvan, snap dat dan.

lennart
08-03-03, 17:50
FATHER THEODOSIOS ATALLAH HANNA DEFENCE COMMITTEE

PRESS RELEASE





The Attorney General of Israel, Dr Eliyakim Rubinstein, and police and
government bodies intend to press criminal charges against a leading
churchman, the spiritual head of the native Greek Orthodox community, Dr
Theodosios Atallah Hanna, for performing his religious duty. The spiritual
leader of the oldest Christian community in the world, established directly
by Our Lord, the dean of St James Cathedral, a native of Nazareth and the
highest-ranking native Palestinian clergyman in the Orthodox Church, is well
known as a proponent of full equality for Christians, Jews and Muslims in
the Holy Land. He calls for peace and brotherly love between denominations,
creeds and nations, defends the poor and oppressed, guards the legitimate
rights and property of the Church, of the community and of all the dwellers
of the Holy Land. These activities have made him disagreeable to the state
officials, who prefer pliant clergymen ready to compromise public interests
for their personal benefit.

The Attorney General's office indicated that Fr Atallah Hanna will be
charged with the offence `unauthorized contact with the enemy' for his
voyages to Christian communities in Syria and Lebanon, though practically
all leading churchmen, rabbis and Muslim clergy in Palestine regularly visit
their brethren in the nearby countries. The Attorney General did not charge
the rabbis who visit the Jewish communities in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and
his decision to charge a Christian priest goes against the principle of
equality before the Law.

Father Atallah is to be charged with meeting with `terrorists'. His accusers
fail to see the similarity between a priest and a physician: neither should
ever refuse a call. Man of faith, Fr Atallah would meet even Sharon and
Mofaz, people charged with war crimes in European courts of law. He would
not send away even the ex-PM Yitzhak Shamir, though he was a leader of LEHI,
the terrorist organisation. Both priest and rabbi should meet the sinners as
well as the virtuous.

The impending charge of incitement to violence is groundless as well. The
Christian faith upholds love, charity and mercy: the Church rejects violence
and vengeance. A faithful Christian leader, Fr Atallah condemns all forms of
violence and terror, whether by the state, by the army, by organisations or
by private persons. He especially condemns the acts of vengeance ordered by
Sharon, for "vengeance is Mine", said the Lord. It is particularly odd to
charge this man of peace, since the Attorney General did not charge with
incitement to crime the Chief Rabbi Mordehai Eliyahu, who allowed settlers
to steal the olives of Palestinian peasants; he did not charge with
incitement the hundred rabbis who declared that the Palestinians are
"Amalek", and thereby issued a call to genocide; he did not charge Rabbi
Ovadiya, who called zealously for the killing of Palestinians; he took no
action against the Rabbis calling for the destruction of all churches and
for the eradication of Christianity; he took no action against persons and
organizations promoting hatred of Christianity and Christians.

This is the latest addition to the ongoing persecution of Christianity in
the Jewish State. It is not enough that Israeli laws allow for the
imprisonment of preachers and missionaries, that Israeli laws allow for the
stripping of Christian immigrants of their Israeli citizenship and for their
deportation, that the Knesset of Israel has debated rendering the praising
of Jesus punishable by mandatory prison sentence.

Last year, the Sharon government of Israel implemented active anti-Christian
policies, namely:

- it refused to recognize the duly elected Patriarch of the Greek
Orthodox Church in the Holy Land, an act without precedent in last eight
hundred years ;

- it condoned actions as barbaric as the public burning of the
Gospel;

- it besieged the Church of the Nativity and its monks and priests
during Easter;

- it demolished the antique Byzantine church of St Barbara in
Abboud;

- it shelled Catholic churches in Bethlehem and Nablous;

- it condoned the defacing and partial destruction of churches,
crosses and images in Haifa (Stella Maris), Kursi, Shibta, etc);

- it denied access by believers to the holy places in Jerusalem in
the occupied territories;

- it did not defend the clergy in face of attacks by fundamentalist
Jewish organizations.

Recently, the Sharon government increased its pressure on the Orthodox
Church in order to seize the lands the Church holds on behalf of the
Christian community and Christian believers all over the world. The Church
refused to extend land leases by hundreds of years, as the government
wished, and demanded to regain its rightful property. This is the backdrop
to the Israeli authorities' attack on Father Theodosios.

We call upon the Israeli Government: save us from this shameful and needless
action, and avoid expected international condemnation. We call upon the
international community, upon the people of the world, upon clergy of all
creeds, upon the citizens of Israel, to protest against this impending
action. Do not touch the priests of God!


(For more detail, please email [email protected] or call the head
of the Greek Orthodox Community, Adi Bazhala phone 056-379312)

Israel Shamir, Press Liaison, [email protected] 054-616775

http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/Beauty/father_hanna.htm

lennart
08-03-03, 17:52
Please find enclosed a translation of Shulamit Aloni's article in Ha'Aretz of 6 March 2003. It seems to have been omitted from the English electronic edition of the paper.

The translation is by Zvi Havkin.

=========================

6 March 2003

Murder of a population under cover of righteousness

By Shulamit Aloni

We do not have gas chambers and crematoria, but there is no one fixed
method for genocide.

Dr. Ya'akov Lazovik writes ("Academic Genocide", "Ha'Aretz", 4 March)
that in the State of Israel it is impossible that the regime and the
nation will plan and commit a genocide. It is difficult to determine
if this is naivety or self-righteousness. As we know, there is no
single fixed method for murder and not even for genocide. The author
Y. L. Peretz wrote about "the righteous cat" who does not spill blood,
but only suffocates.

The government of Israel, using the military and its instruments of
destruction, is not only spilling blood, but it is also suffocating.
What other name can be given to the dropping of a one-ton bomb over a
dense urban area, when the justification uttered is that we wanted to
murder a dangerous terrorist and his wife? The rest of the citizens
who were killed and injured, among whom are children and women, do not
count, of course.

How is it possible to explain the expulsion of citizens from their
homes at three o'clock in the morning on a rainy night, then
depositing bombs in the house and then departing without warning?
When those expelled returned to their home, the bombs were exploded
and a brutal murder and destruction of property was thus committed.
And what is the justification for what happened in Jenin? We did not
destroy the whole neighbourhood, just 85 houses; it was not
slaughter, we killed only 50-some citizens. How many does one need to
murder and destroy for it to be a crime? - A crime against humanity,
as determined by the Laws of the State of Israel, not only the laws of
Belgium.

And more: A curfew and closure of an entire city so that a few
celebrants from the racist bunch in Hebron could walk to the Cave of
the Fathers, and tanks destroying fruit and vegetable stands, and
bulldozers that destroy houses, and Generals who, in their arrogant
hubris, are willing to destroy a whole neighbourhood for the
convenience of a group of settler hooligans. Curfew, closure,
brutality, murder, destruction of homes of suspects, while we keep
parroting the incantation that a person is innocent until proven
otherwise (as in the case of our Prime Minister and his sons).

The order that Ariel Sharon gave to the soldiers who went to wreak
revenge in Qibiah: "Maximize losses in life and property", has not
been forgotten. Today Sharon, Mofaz and Yaalon, the three Generals
who manage the policy of this government, behave like that
self-righteous cat - suffocating all the time. Curfew and another
curfew, arrests and more arrests, destruction of roads, brutality to
the residents at road stops. Benny Alon, (a minister in the present
government), already said: "make their life so bitter that they will
transfer themselves willingly".

This is done on a daily basis, in addition to the destruction. The
Chief of Staff, Yaalon, already announced that he is "destroying for
re-building". One can understand from his moves that the "building"
is building of more and more settlements. So that they will not be
obliged, as military rulers, to take care of the residents'
well-being, the army uses sorties, followed by retreats. They enter a
village, they kill, they destroy and they arrest, and then they
retreat. Those who remain on the ashes and the ruins will take care
of themselves.

Many of our children are being indoctrinated, in religious schools,
that the Arabs are Amalek, and the bible teaches us that Amalek must
be destroyed. There was already a rabbi (Israel Hess) who wrote in
the newspaper of Bar Ilan University that we all must commit genocide,
and that is because his research showed that the Palestinians are
Amalek.

The nation is not planning to commit genocide; the nation really does
not want to know what's happening in the territories. The nation is
following orders given by the legitimate representatives of the
regime. After the legitimate Prime Minister who wanted to bring peace
was murdered, the hand is loose on the trigger, greed is paramount,
and there is always some reason to brutalise all of the residents of a
city that number tens, if not hundreds of thousands, because there are
always people there who are on the "wanted" list. It is sufficient
that one person is wanted to bomb and kill, by mistake, of course,
also women, children, workers and other humans - if indeed we still
count them as humans.

Of course with our self-righteousness, with our self-adoration in our
"Jewish ethics" we make sure to advertise how beautifully the doctors
take care of Palestinian victims in the hospitals. We do not
advertise how many of those are executed in cold blood in their own
homes.

So it's not yet genocide of the terrible and unique style of which we
were past victims. And as one of the smart Generals told me, we do
not have crematoria and gas chambers. Is anything less than that
consistent with Jewish ethics? Did he ever hear how an entire people
said that it did not know what was done in its name?

(The author was an MK and a minister, member of Meretz)

lennart
09-03-03, 17:49
When the Israeli army comes calling

Alan Johnston has just spent nearly two weeks living with a Palestinian family in the West Bank city of Nablus looking at how the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people are being re-shaped by the seemingly endless confrontation:

The beam from the searchlight caught the house, and the living room around us was suddenly awash with light.

We stood motionless, listening to the Israeli armour grind slowly up the street. Would the soldiers pass by - or were they coming for us?

They stopped at our gate.

It was two in the morning, and it seemed that in a moment, the troops would be pounding on our door.

We had heard their loudspeaker earlier, ordering people to come out of their homes with their hands on their heads. But then the patrol gunned its engines. It was turning and moving on.

Leila began to laugh softly. "Now you know why we smoke so much," she said.

I knew all along that even if we were ordered out, my identity card would show that I was a foreign journalist, and I'd be left alone.

But for a moment, standing in the beam of the searchlight, you did get a little of the sense of what it is to be a Palestinian when the Israeli army comes calling in the night.

Suicide bombers

The family that I was staying with are not in any way militant, or even political. But, like all Palestinians, they dread any encounter with the army.

A degree of humiliation is always possible. Perhaps just some abuse - an insult, perhaps a slapping for a man who steps out of line.

And then there is even the chance of some terrible misunderstanding in the darkness - a nervous young soldier, and a burst of fire.

Back in Jerusalem last summer I remember going through the wreckage of a cafe where a suicide bomber had struck. A survivor called Nouri Isaacs told me how a chance decision to sit on one side of the cafe rather than the other had probably saved his life.

Nouri went into grotesque detail, telling me how the person he was chatting to had had his ribcage broken by the bomber's head, which had shot across the cafe like a cannonball.

The Israeli soldiers out in the night, pounding on the doors of Nablus, would tell you that they were on a mission to end those kinds of Palestinian attacks.

The army searches for militants from organisations like the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, which was formed in Nablus. The soldiers would say that if a potential bomber was hiding somewhere in our area, then catching him might save a dozen Israeli lives - and in that case some broken sleep for my friend Khaled and his neighbours would be a small price to pay.

But a Palestinian might argue that if Israel was not occupying and expanding its presence on the West Bank then there might not be any suicide bombers.

And so the argument goes on, and so the occupation continues, and close-up, its violence is particularly shocking. During my 12 days in Nablus, the Israelis shot seven people dead - including two ambulance men and a retarded boy.

Nablus is a city where anyone so much as disobeying an order to halt during the curfew knows that he is risking the army's deadly fire.

Ordinary lives

The occupation in its current, especially intense form seems to crowd into all the corners of the lives of ordinary Palestinians - surfacing in almost every conversation in one way or another.

It has smashed the economy and crippled the education system. But in the chaos of what feels like a collapsing society, there is at times a strange degree of normality.

As the Israelis exchanged fire one afternoon with militants in the city centre, just a few streets away people carried on doing business.

I watched a young mum glance around the corner of an alleyway to check that it was safe for her kids to cross and perhaps carry on with the shopping.

And, despite everything, people in Nablus seemed surprisingly ready to laugh at their strange and violent predicament.

You kept coming across a seam of dark humour.

My friend Khaled says that when he was a kid he spent a whole intifada throwing stones at Israeli soldiers - but he never managed to actually hit one. He says it used to make him wonder if the Israelis really were the chosen people.

His stone-throwing wasn't entirely without impact, though. He once hit his brother by mistake. Even the intifada has its friendly fire.

But the moment I'll probably remember longest came after the Israelis had been ransacking Nablus's old quarter, the Casbah, for four days.

The city's mayor called for a peaceful protest. At 2030 exactly that evening people began, en masse, to let out Islam's famous cry - Allahu Akbar, God is Great.

Men and women, the young and the old came out onto thousands of balconies and rooftops in driving rain to shout at the top of their voices - over and over again.

Their cries and whistles began to merge and swell.

In the end, it seemed that the whole city was roaring into the night - demanding that God and the world hear its rage and defiance.

In the morning the Israeli army pulled out of the Casbah.