-Caveat Lector- Daily Violence Erodes Mideast Truce "Everybody is fed up with the Jewish occupation. What are we supposed to do? We live in garbage. And the Israelis come with their tanks and guns. Are we supposed to sit back and accept this humiliation?" By Lee Hockstader Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, June 26, 2001; Page A11 KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip -- Victims of the latest cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians fill Room 35 of Nasser Hospital, bullet wounds in their torsos and limbs. In the far corner lies Jasr Asalmi, a lanky 17-year-old shot through the groin by Israeli soldiers last week as he heaved stones at their armored jeep. In the next bed is Abdullah Abu Mustaffah, 15, his scrawny left thigh bandaged where an Israeli soldier's bullet passed through it. He was throwing stones, too. And on the wall over their beds hangs a poster of Adel Muganen, another 15-year-old stone-thrower who was shot in the abdomen, died on the operating table and entered the pantheon of Palestinian martyrs. Two weeks after it was brokered by CIA Director George J. Tenet, the cease-fire seems often to consist of two parts fire to one part cease. At least 13 people -- seven Palestinians and six Israelis -- have died in violence since the two sides agreed to the truce. Dozens have been wounded. The violence has intensified in recent days as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon prepared for a visit to Washington today and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell prepared for a visit here that has been characterized as a rescue mission for the cease-fire. Powell's stay here Thursday and Friday is expected to consist mainly of meetings with Sharon and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. And while Powell is likely to push for a timetable to end the violence and coax the two sides back to the negotiating table, there is little optimism about a breakthrough as daily shootings and funerals continue. "It's going to be hard to push for the next phase if there's no quiet on the ground," a U.S. official said. The violence is taking place mainly in the Israeli-occupied parts of Gaza and the West Bank, not in Israel proper. From the perspective of most Israelis, that is an improvement, following the rash of suicide bombings and other attacks in Israeli cities this spring. In addition, Israel has refrained from using tanks, heavy weapons and helicopter gunships, and Palestinian patrols have received orders to prevent clashes at flash points around Israeli military positions. The overall level of violence is estimated to have dropped by 60 percent or more since the Tenet cease-fire went into effect June 13. But here in the sand dunes of Gaza, and along the roads of the West Bank, the shootings, mortar and grenade attacks and ambushes continue to take their toll. And even inside Israel, at least two undetonated bombs have been discovered in the past two weeks. Four of those killed since the cease-fire was reached have been Jewish settlers shot in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. A number of other settlers have been injured by Palestinian gunfire, including a 6-year-old boy shot in the chest yesterday by a Palestinian sniper in the West Bank city of Hebron. Four Israeli soldiers were also hurt in the shooting, which the army said erupted when gunmen in a Palestinian-controlled portion of the city opened fire on a Jewish enclave. "There is no cease-fire," said Brig. Gen. Amos Gilead, research chief of Israeli military intelligence. Mohammed Abu Ahmed, an officer in Arafat's Force 17 security organization, scoffed at the idea of a permanent cease-fire. "The uprising won't end for long," said Abu Ahmed, who is in charge of keeping things quiet outside a Jewish settlement in southern Gaza. "It will stop and start, start and stop, depending on the situation." It has become so dangerous for Jewish settlers to travel the roads in some parts of the West Bank that the Israeli army has rented armored buses to protect them from snipers and ambushes and advised them to stop driving private cars. The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth reported that Carta, an Israeli cartographic firm, will publish the first road map of the occupied territories to show which routes are considered safe from Palestinian ambushes and drive-by shootings and which are considered life-threatening. "This is a map of life and death," said Carta's director general, Shai Hausman. Neither side believes the other truly wants or is planning for a cease-fire. The Palestinians are convinced that Sharon is not prepared to engage in peace negotiations that could produce international pressure on Israel to withdraw from more Palestinian territory and freeze construction at Jewish settlements -- measures he ardently opposes. The Israelis believe Arafat has made a strategic choice for violence as a means of squeezing political concessions from the Jewish state. The grinding daily violence, meanwhile, is too lethal to be dismissed as trivial and too scattered and low-caliber to be considered all-out war. On the Israeli-patrolled border at Rafah, between Gaza and Egypt, for instance, Palestinians on a typical day toss a half-dozen grenades at Israeli troops. The grenades are homemade, casualties are rare and sometimes the Israelis do not bother firing back. When they do, it is often with heavy machine guns that pock buildings. "It goes like this," said Ala Abu Hassan, a Palestinian who lives in Rafah and has watched the confrontations since the cease-fire went into effect. Palestinian "kids walk up to the fence, maybe throwing stones or scavenging for a bullet casing. Then the Israeli soldiers in their lookout posts start firing in the air to terrify the kids. And then the Palestinian [militants] react. "Everybody is fed up with the Jewish occupation. What are we supposed to do? We live in garbage. And the Israelis come with their tanks and guns. Are we supposed to sit back and accept this humiliation?" A Palestinian soldier at Rafah who passes his days crouched behind sandbags said his assignment -- to keep the peace -- is virtually impossible. "There's not a day that passes here without shooting," he said. © 2001 The Washington Post Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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