6 january 2002

Since 4 January the group (around 30 comrades) has moved to the Gaza area after stoping the previous days in the Israeli occupied territories of the West Bank in the cities of Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron.
The situation in the Gaza area is different from place to place. Whilst in Gaza city the bombarded buildings are mainly palestinian police stations and administration offices of the National Palestinian Authority (ANP), in the refugee camps bombs have struck indiscriminately civilian houses. The destruction has been very wide mainly near to the check points that control the israeli colonies. For example in the refugee camp of Rafah (in the very south of the Gaza area near the border with Egipt - controlled by Israeli) a whole lot of 150 houses have been reduced to wreckage.

The group of comrades has visited these houses and whilst visiting after a few minutes the pre-bombardement siren started to sound, warning the group that if within 2 minutes they hadn't left the houses, the army would have opened fire on them. The group moved on. To be noticed that after the houses there are sensors that guide an automatic firing system that opens fire if the demarcation line is trespassed, even if it were a child, and offcourse the usual mines...
These military points control new colonies for now only occupied by military people due to the hostility of the palestinians around that area. A settlement with colonial families can be found instead near the Khanyunis refugee camp and which is strongly fortified and defended by israeli militaries.

In other words the refugee camps have the tipical "bombarded" aspect like Beirut and the life conditions have turned back to be as the ones before the Oslo agreement, hence infernal...in the cities the development proceedes despite the bombardements and improvements can be noticed towards to the previous years.
Anyhow,reconstruction work is alive in all the palestinian territories, even the airport of Gaza, bombarded not too long ago, is being reconstructed, which is an evident sign that the repression acted by Israel doesn't affect that much the palestinians who are now used to live with the demolition and recostruction of their houses. Thing that would leave us, western people, in the most deep desperation.

The days pass for the group by meeting palestian committees, centres and associations, mainly with the young of the Gaza area, recording interviews and prepairing a video on the actual situation of the occupied territories.

At the moment the ceasefire seems to last even if there are no signs of a solution to the conflict. The only receipt that seems to come out is from the USA envoy, Zinni, which is to arrest the wanted. Thing which is being done both by the ANP and, with the delicacy of the tanks, by the israel military force, which doesn't seem to be interested by making a difference of murder and arrest, disguising extra-judicial executions as an extreme attempt to stop a kamikaze (several times this "kamikaze" is home or in similar circumstances).
The arrests have been followed by many popular demonstrations against the ANP, that have taken place these days in Ramallah, Nablus and Gaza organised by the left (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestina FPLP) and by the islamics (Hamas and Jihad).

In these days there has been also a meeting of the OLP (Organization for the Liberation of Palestine) which assembled all the "signatures" of the Palestinian resistance, which has declared that in these conditions it is impossible to start a negotiation with Israel, that asks for the "end of violence" , as 2 main points are not considered by the israelites: the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders and the return of the palestinian refugees.

What the group has noticed is a big return of protagonism of the FPLP both on the street fights as in the social life, where it carries out a big duty with the young, in educating to a prospective of a laic and democratic society.
It feels heavily for this reason the TERRORIST etiquette put by Israel and USA, frequently used by Arafat to strike internal opposition.

From today the group will turn back to the west Bank to meet the Women committees.
For tonight a meeting with Tmcrew on the palestinian television channel of Ramallah concerning media and communication in the palestinian conflict. ;)