Blog 10

Clean up in Ramallah

The talk about town is that late on Thursday afternoon an Israeli undercover squad entered Ramallah in order to arrest/execute two members of the Al-Aqsa martyrs brigade. They were discovered and called in the regular army with bulldozers. The two men wanted by Israel escaped but so far the death toll is four with about 25 seriously injured.

The resulting clean up after the Israeli raid took most of Thursday night. One of the main streets leading to Manara Square received most of the attention. Although one of the widest streets in central Ramallah, the parked cars were picked up, smashed up and shoved up against the shop fronts. About 20 cars were destroyed in this fashion. It is difficult to understand why this was necessary as they were not impeding access.

Leading off this street is a small lane that is home to the central fruit and vegetable market. The market is like most other outdoor markets, trestle tables on both sides of the lane with wood and canvass serving as a roof. An Israeli armoured bulldozer drove about 30 metres up the lane into the market destroying a number of livelihoods as it went. This part of town smelled of freshly squeezed orange juice for the rest of the evening as a Palestinian bulldozer and dump truck cleaned up.

Locals believe that the Israeli's were frustrated at failing to get what they came for and so decided to use the opportunity to smash up the town.

These raids are apparently quite common in the West Bank towns of Nablus and Jenin and generally go reported, if at all, as "militant killed in the West Bank". The difference with Thursday's raid in Ramallah was that it occurred in front of the Aljazeera office in Manara Square and the footage was aired on Aljazeera and CNN, for what that's worth.

Friday was a day of prayer, funerals, talk on the street and was wet, misty and cold. In search of something a little more cheerful, I joined a German contingent in Jerusalem for a drink. As one of the Germans had a diplomatic pass, we could drive to Jerusalem along a settler road. These roads are well constructed without much traffic, as Palestinians are not permitted to use them. To gain access to a settler road you must pass through a military checkpoint to ensure Palestinians are kept out. All the settlements in the West Bank are linked by these exclusive roads to Israel.

Arrived at work this morning to find that offices on the third, fourth and seventh floors (our floor), had been set on fire on Friday. People seem to think it was Fatah - the clean up continues.

(Here's what the BBC had to say: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6231439.stm)