Meanwhile, all around the area, in every construction site on the hills overlooking the road, Israeli troops were stationed, guns at the ready. We kept coming across soldiers crossing roads, climbing hills, and based in solid-looking landmarks.

Left: Sixteen Israeli soldiers occupy the roof of this unfinished Palestinian apartment building, one sitting down behind a huge machine gun, revealed in the progressive enlargements below. Photos by Nigel Parry.

Why such a big gun for people throwing stones? It certainly wasn't for the Palestinian police, who were staying well out of it today, keeping as many Palestinians away from the checkpoint as possible.

Scenes like this seemed to be remarkably absent from world media coverage. I'm not saying I did a survey of all coverage or anything so scientific, just that no one seemed to focus on this disparity of weaponary that seemed so relevant in this situation from day one.

Instead, the mock outrage of Netanyahu and his media men was given much coverage, with choruses of, "How could they shoot at us with guns we have given them?". No one covered the fact that this limited war was started when Israeli troops in - as per fucking usual - non life threatening situations, were blowing away demonstrators, and clapping, dancing, and giving each other high fives as they did so.

Palestinian television had photographs of this. Why didn't the international media? Mmmm?

That's why my choice would always be to work on building media like this diary instead of kissing the ass of some editor at the New York Times in the hope that he will print 400 severely-edited words and one picture in the name of 'balance'.

This diary is not balanced, it's not trying to be. But it certainly isn't missing out large and important facts that tell the story. And - somehow - the story of the September 1996 clashes was only ever half-told.

No one ever spoke about the spark of murder in Ramallah that lit the fuse of this national, injustice-prepared powder keg, even though hundreds of people saw it firsthand, and its explosion rose up and claimed the lives of 88 Palestinians and 14 Israelis.

This last paragraph prompted these pages and the whole 'On the Ground in Ramallah' website. It motivated around eight of us to join forces and publish what we saw with the media available to us. As far as I know, it was the first time in human history that a group of people used the World Wide Web to offer a near-live, alternative perspective in a war situation. And hopefully, it won't be the last.