Monday, April 22, 2002

Palestinians Say They Are Too Angry to Celebrate the Israeli Withdrawal
Israeli officials said they were hunting for wanted terrorists and collecting documents that linked the Palestinian Authority to attacks on Israeli civilians. Soldiers have ransacked every government ministry here, taking pivotal documents, like papers that Israeli officials contend show Mr. Arafat's support for attacks, and not so pivotal ones, like the information stripped from the hard drives of computers in the Ministry of Education.

But Palestinians see the goal of the operation as humiliation. Aymen Alkhatib, an engineer at the Palestinian Petroleum Corporation, whose offices he said were also ransacked, saw the incursion as a blunt message. The message of the Israeli leaders, he said, was: " `You as a people have to accept what we give you. If you start to feel strong, I will show you there is no one stronger than us. I will stomp on you.' "

Storeowners in the commercial district complained that Israeli soldiers trashed and looted their shops. Two of four statue lions in a monument in the center of the square had graffiti in Hebrew or Stars of David spray-painted on them.

Palestinians predicted a continuation of the cycle of retaliation and retribution of the last 18 months.

"There is a wound that we managed to cure," said Wael Abdullah, a 30-year-old policeman. "But unfortunately it was opened again."

He and other Palestinians complained that the Israeli forces that still surround Mr. Arafat's compound divide the city in two. Military blockades outside Ramallah prevent people living in outlying villages from entering the city, stifling the economy. Residents said a military blockade of the West Bank prevented Palestinians from traveling to Gaza.

"The problem will remain eternal," said Mr. Abdullah, who is from Gaza. "Any partial solution will not work."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/22/international/middleeast/22RAMA.html

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