INTRODUCTION:
In December 1995, accompanied by previously unheard of local celebrations, Israel pulled out of Ramallah, the West Bank Palestinian town where I lived from 1994 to 1998. It was quite an experience to see how much the town changed in the aftermath of this event, a direct result of the new hope that redeployment initially gave people. Since then, after it became increasingly clear that Israel's main priority had been to hand over the headache of controlling a hostile population to the Palestinian police, and land confiscation and other signs of occupation carried on unabated, this hope has evaporated. Several other sections of the diary deal with subsequent events in the Ramallah area and provide an important sequel to this section, and diary entries from them are listed below.

ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF RAMALLAH

• Israel's bureaucratic message of hatred from 9 June 1995.
• Letter from Ramallah #1 from 21 July 1995.
• Car license plates: The road to apartheid from 15 November 1995.
• Israeli control of the roads from 20 December 1995.

REDEPLOYMENT DAY - 27 DECEMBER 1995

• Thoughts before the Israeli departure
• Waiting for the Israelis to go
• Israeli departure from Ramallah Police Station [2 parts]
• Ramallah Police Station handed over
• Palestinian Police prepare their new cars
• Removing all signs of the Israelis

AFTER REDEPLOYMENT - 28 DECEMBER 1995 TO 5 JANUARY 1996

• Palestinian Police Parade from 28 December 1995.
• Gun culture in Ramallah from 28 December 1995.
• Meanwhile in the nearby settlement of Bet El [2 parts] from 29 December 1995.
• Arafat visits Ramallah from 30 December 1995.
• Redeployment Street Celebrations from 30 December 1995.
• Why have the maps changed? - from 5 January 1996 (Closure Diary)

BEYOND REDEPLOYMENT - FEBRUARY 1996 TO MAY 1998

• First Israeli closure of Ramallah [3 parts] from 12 February 1996 (Closure Diary).
• Locked in Ramallah for two weeks [3 parts] from 5-18 March 1996 (Closure Diary).
• Letter from Ramallah #2 from 10 May 1996.
• 'On the Ground in Ramallah' Diary from 25 September 1996
  An 18-part account of the clashes that started with Birzeit students and developed into a limited war betwen Israeli soldiers and the Palestinian Police and Israeli deployment of tanks and attack helicopters around Ramallah. Originally part of an independent section of Birzeit's website, this section received 3,000 visitors during the first ten days after the clashes began.
• Ramallah closed again after an attack on settlers [6 parts] from 11-14 December 1996 (Closure Diary).
• Birzeit students join in [3 parts] from 26 March 1997 (Abu Ghnaim Diary).
• Birzeit student shot [2 parts] from 29 March 1997 (Abu Ghnaim Diary).
• The immediate situation beckons from 7-9 August 1997 (Closure Diary).
• Clashes after three shot dead near Hebron [5 parts] from 11 March 1998.
• Goodbye Nizar Qabbani from 5 May 1998.
  Sent out by e-mail on the Internet, this essay provoked one of the largest amounts of mail received as a result of any diary entry.
• Newsflash: Ramallah security branches turn soccer scuffle into mini Lebanon from 7 May 1998.
  An account of the worst incident of post-Oslo PA violence in the centre of Ramallah, the entry was posted the same night. Strangely, this story was not reported by the international media.
• Al-Nakba commemorated in Ramallah [5 parts] from 14 May 1998.
• Diary of My Home Demolition - from 25 May 1998.
  Account of when a Palestinian gang, including members of the security forces, forced my eviction with a violent raid on my home in Ramallah that included its partial demolition with a bulldozer.

RELATED SITES:


• The Ramallah Online Travel Guide at Birzeit University.
• Palestinian National Authority (http://www.pna.net/)
• Arutz 7 settler radio station - Settler-related coverage from this far-right Jewish religious school, based in Beit El settlement near Ramallah.