As Mohammed Shawaf unloaded heavy flour sacks from a UN Palestinian relief agency truck in this poverty-stricken town, at the frontline of recent fighting, he vowed "the resistance will continue."
Ask Palestinians here whether they respect Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, they will say 'of course'. But ask about his order Saturday for a ceasefire in the eight-month Palestinian uprising or intifada, most say such a move is impossible to support.
"So long as the occupation continues, the intifada cannot stop. And it will even toughen, with more and more varied actions against the occupier," said Shawaf said, standing by a donkey-driven cart for distributing UN flour.
Palestinians in Khan Yunis were adapting Tuesday to the drastic changes on the political front since the Friday suicide bomb blast in Tel Aviv, wich killing the bomber and 20 others, prompted Arafat to order a ceasefire on attacks against Israelis.
The militant Islamic group Hamas' military wing announced in a statement Monday a halt on attacks in Isreal, but denied the pledge Tuesday.
Indeed, the task of ending the violence, which has seen some 600 people die, is a daunting one. And at Khan Yunis, where much blood has been spilled, people are angered by the idea of a truce.
"The ceasefire? The people here will respect it when the Israelis leave the occupied territories and when east Jerusalem is our capital," said Amar Nadja, a young man who had come to town looking for a precious bag of flour.
Nadja boiled at the notion that the Israelis were honouring their own ceasefire declared two weeks ago by their hardline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"The Israelis wounded 22 Palestinians near here yesterday. And the ceasefire, it must be only from our side?" he said, referring to clashes Monday in the southern Gaza Strip by the Egyptian border.
Ahmed Abujaza, an unemployed farmer, listed multiple reasons why a truce was unthinkable.
"We have suffered too much. We are all hungry. There is no work. There is no medicine. The bulldozers continue to raze our lands.
"The Israelis toughen their security measures -- shooting on us, imposing blockades on all the roads. It takes me a full day to travel to Gaza City," he said, which is only 32 kilometres (18 miles) away from Khan Yunis.
One needs to walk only 100 metres to the neighborhood of Tufah to see the damage done to Khan Yunis.
Caught in the crossfire of Israeli military stationed at the neighboring Gush Katif settlement bloc and Palestinian gunmen, Tufah has been reduced to rubble. The only signs of life are children running from tent to tent.
The buildings left standing are riddled with holes, whole walls have been torn away and gutted pipes lie exposed, while posters of suicide bombers are tacked on remaining doors.
"There was a clash here yesterday," said Mohamed al-Najiar, 26, a bank employee.
He stared at his village in the distance, beyond Israeli cement barricades. He can leave his home with his special Israeli-issued identity card, but his friends, who are farmers, are trapped there, stranded with produce they cannot sell.
"In a general fashion, the Palestinian security forces and the Fatah can observe the ceasefire. But when they Israelis attack them, when the Israelis enter the Palestinian areas, we must defend ourselves." |
