Left: A Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) car is riddled with bullets. A friend of ours from PBC was later injured when a PBC vehicle was struck by a car frantically tring to take an injured person to the hospital.

The bullet holes in this car - when compared with the earlier photo in this diary section - demonstrate that the soldiers were using live ammunition from quite a distance away, i.e. in a non life-threatening situation. Photo by Yasser Darweesh

Right: An injured man sits in shock against a shop front, clutching a towel to his wound. Photo by Yasser Darweesh

Events like these, taking place against a civilian backdrop of a busy town, can rip apart the fabric of life and distrupt normality for weeks.

Within a week of the end of these clashes, life would seem to return to normal, something that exacerbates the sense of unreality that witnessing violent events has on the human psychology.

What is considered "normality" in a West Bank town such as Ramallah would be one million miles away from the definition we would have in Europe or North America. One of the hardest things to get used to when you first arrive here as an international resident is how much events such as these pictured here are taken for granted.

Palestinians who travel to study in the U.S. often comment that life there seems "shallow" to them. In this global village that the world is becoming thanks to the increasing prevelance of information technology, I would tend to agree with them. When editing this diary for its relaunch in October 1998, currently resident in Minneapolis, Minnisota, I am constantly amazed at what fills people's lives here.

While my Palestinian friends are getting arrested by security agencies, my American friends debate which bar to go out to this weekend. I do not say this to criticise them as individuals - after all this is life in America - but this does not make it any less disturbing for me when their government's actions are doing much to perpetuate the suffering of my other friends.

Left: A disgarded placard from the Birzeit University Student Council lies on the ground. It reads, "Jerusalem needs an Intifada that will renew the era/covenant and bring back its dignity and glory" Photo by Yasser Darweesh

The Intifada, of course, was the Palestinian uprising that started in December 1987 and involved all members of society. The Arabic word "Intifada" means a "shaking off" in English, a shaking off of the things from the occupation that Palestinians had allowed to oppress them.

The military occupation truly is a monkey on the back of the Palestinian population here, requiring mountains of bureaucracy and paperwork for each aspect of life, from building a house to visiting Jerusalem, everything needs a permit. Few are granted. One of the key aspects of the Intifada was the boycotting of the Israeli military administration's structures.