One more day in Palestine

Yesterday I attended a demonstration in Ramallah against Condoleeza Rice's visit in the region. While the various political and armed factions seemed pretty united, the Palestinian Authority police and security forces attacked the crowd with huge (baseball bat sized!) batons and a number of people were injured. The factions did not come armed.

The angry crowd was pushed back and surged back forward a number of times, with many people accusing the PA police of collaborating with the US. While this was going on, a small number of women managed to get to the gates of the Muqata (the PA headquarters in which the Abbas-Rice meeting was taking place). They vocally expressed their desire to get into the compound, but we stopped by (once again) PA police, joined by US Secret Service agents.

Later on, a couple of Islamic Jihad militants in facemasks burned an Israeli flag. It took them 20 minutes to light the damn thing. They seem to not have heard of lighter fuel around here.

Anyway, here are some pictures:

ISM Activists carried signs with this message in a few different languages (English, German, Swedish, Gaelic)

More 'new Middle East' stuff. Dead kids, etc. The top center image is an Israeli denial of entry stamp.

The guys above were beating the crap out of people like the guy below:

I think this guy is from Al Aqsa martyrs brigade, who were on the side of the PA police this time, despite having shootouts with them only a few weeks ago.

PA guy trying to explain to this woman why she can't go to the compound and tell Condi about her sons who are in Israeli jail.

Islamic Jihad militant burning an Israeli flag.

Young girl at the women's protest near the Muqata.

More later. Last night we went to witness an Israeli special forces attack on a building here in Ramallah. Pictures and info to come...

|Israel|Palestine|Condoleeza Rice|USA|