5 dec 2001
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The two men at the helm of the Israeli government in October 2000 take the witness stand over their role in the deaths of Arab Israeli citizens at
Last week saw a crucial moment in the 14- month-old Al-Aqsa Intifada, launched in late September 2000 by the outpouring of Palestinian anger at Likud leader Ariel Sharon's visit to Haram Al-Sharif. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his internal security minister, Shlomo Ben Ami, who headed the Israeli cabinet when the Intifada broke out, took the witness stand over their role in a spate of Palestinian deaths that spurred on the Intifada. Both Barak and Ben Ami were giving evidence to the Or Commission, a judicial inquiry investigating the slayings of 13 unarmed Palestinian-born Israeli citizens by police in the country's Galilee region. It is the first time either Barak or Ben Ami have been officially questioned about the event, which occurred in the immediate aftermath of the start of the uprising. Clearly determined to save their political skins, both claimed they had no responsibility for the deaths inside Israel. They also successfully stonewalled the inquiry in its attempts to clarify why at least seven more Palestinian demonstrators were killed by police marksmen at the Haram Al- Sharif in Jerusalem's Old City following Sharon's heavily armed visit to the site. Neither politician dares risk censure by Justice Theodor Or. Although they have been out of the political spotlight since the Israeli electorate dumped the Labour government and propelled Sharon to power earlier this year, both harbour strong desires for a comeback. Ben Ami has hinted that he is likely to run for the Labour Party leadership next year. Barak, meanwhile, has been licking his wounds, feeling increasingly embattled over recent revelations that his peace offerings to the Palestinians at Camp David were nowhere near as "generous" as he claimed. He is believed to be keen on rehabilitating his international reputation and may be waiting in the wings should Sharon's coalition government begin to fall apart. Hanging over both Ben Ami and Barak is the shadow of the Kahane Commission, which examined the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in the Lebanese camps of Sabra and Shatilla. The political career of Sharon, who was defence minister at the time of the massacre, suffered a major setback after Kahane ruled that he was indirectly responsible for the Christian phalangists' killing spree, as he allowed them into the camps. Sharon was forced to resign. The Kahane Commission established a precedent for holding government ministers accountable for criminal actions taken under their supervision. Justice Or could similarly rule that Barak and Ben Ami are culpable for the 13 Palestinians killed by Israel's northern police force. It has been suggested by civil rights lawyers that some of the evidence already before the commission implicates Barak and Ben Ami. |
For example, it is known that Barak personally invited the police commanders to a meeting with him and Ben Ami on the night of 1 October following the first day of demonstrations in Galilee. The next morning Barak announced on Israeli radio that he had given police the "green light" to take whatever action was necessary to preserve the rule of law and keep the roads in the north open.
It was later that day that the district's commander, Alik Ron, brought in a unit of snipers to the towns of Nazareth and Umm Al-Fahm and the number of Palestinian casualties rapidly rose. It was the first time the snipers had ever been deployed inside Israel. Days earlier marksmen had been similarly used against Palestinians protesting at Haram Al-Sharif.
At the inquiry, Barak and Ben Ami adopted different strategies for denying responsibility for the deaths, though both agreed that there had been serious "intelligence failures." Presumably, they were secure in the knowledge that Shin Bet officers will not be testifying before the inquiry.
Barak directed his venom at an "extremist 0.5 per cent" of the Palestinian population in Israel that was bent on "deliberately fomenting violence by stoking the true feelings of frustration and discrimination of the Israeli Arab population." He pointed the finger at Knesset member Azmi Bishara's Balad Party and the outlawed Sons of the Village movement for trying to "echo" the violence in the occupied territories.
Of the heavily armed visit by Sharon to Haram Al-Sharif on 28 September 2000, Barak said that, while he would have "preferred" that Sharon did not make the visit, he blamed Yasser Arafat for fomenting the violence. He said had Sharon not visited the site, the Palestinian Authority chairman would have found an excuse to launch the Intifada anyhow.
Barak added that the police and Shin Bet had advised the government that the visit would not lead to public disorder. He also rejected accusations that the police had used excessive force in dispersing Muslim demonstrators at Haram Al- Sharif, even though five Palestinians were shot dead the day after Sharon's visit. "The rioters are responsible for the riots, as are those who incited them," he said.
The former prime minister used his testimony to lavishly praise the police in Galilee, singling out commanding officer Alik Ron, who he said was a man "you could see is honest just by looking at him." Throughout his remarks, Barak worked hard to adopt a tone of resigned neutrality -- as though he had simply been a passive spectator of the events of September and October 2000. His testimony was supposed to continue into a second day, but Justice Or cut it short -- apparently deciding that there was no point in continuing when the former prime minister was prepared to reveal almost no details about the events of last year.
Asked about the behaviour of individual officers, Barak repeatedly said that he could not speak definitively about past events. This prompted a pointed comment from one of the members of the inquiry, Professor Shimon Shamir, who said: "We are a commission of past inquiry."
Ben Ami was slightly more forthcoming -- using his testimony to settle scores with a police command he felt had disobeyed him and refused to implement his directives. His evidence, however, only served to paint a dismal picture of a security minister with almost no control over police leadership bent on seeking a violent confrontation with the country's Palestinian minority.
Unlike Barak, Ben Ami was severely critical of Ron, saying he behaved "like a general" rather than a policeman. Ben Ami suggested that police reports may have exaggerated the violence of the demonstrations to justify their tactics of brutal suppression. The former minister also claimed he was kept in the dark by the police command. He said he only found out that snipers had been used in Umm Al-Fahm and Nazareth when the admissions by the police to the Or Commission were made public earlier this year. Asked what he thought of the unit's deployment, he said it was "one of the worst things I can conceive of in a democracy."
Ben Ami opposed the use of rubber bullets, he said, and ordered the police to show restraint from the outset. He also ordered chief police inspector Yehuda Wilk to disarm the police on 4 October, when the number of casualties became clear. Wilk refused, saying the situation was too dangerous.
In an illuminating moment, Ben Ami showed his exasperation with the discriminatory attitudes of Israel's security services towards its Palestinian minority. He said he was pleased to hear from Wilk that rubber bullets were being used against Jewish rioters in Acre. "I jumped when I heard this. I said, 'Finally, there is equal treatment [for Jews and Arabs]'." The report, however, turned out to be untrue: no rubber bullets had been used against the Jewish rioters.
Ben Ami added to the inquiry's confusion about the orders concerning the Wadi Ara road, the strategic highway close to Umm Al-Fahm where police shot dead three protesters. Ron had testified that Wilk ordered him to keep the road open at all costs, while Wilk said he gave no such instructions. Ben Ami, however, said he told Wilk to close the road. "The road was opened contrary to the order," he said.
Justice Or questioned Ben Ami closely about his failure to order an immediate investigation into the shootings, suggesting that such an investigation could have thrown much light on what really happened. Ben Ami replied that he had been too preoccupied with preventing the killings. Or observed: "There is no contradiction between ordering a report and stopping the killing."
The next stage expected by lawyers is for the inquiry to recall selected officials for more detailed cross-examination before recommending criminal charges be lodged against some of the participants in the event.
It was later that day that the district's commander, Alik Ron, brought in a unit of snipers to the towns of Nazareth and Umm Al-Fahm and the number of Palestinian casualties rapidly rose. It was the first time the snipers had ever been deployed inside Israel. Days earlier marksmen had been similarly used against Palestinians protesting at Haram Al-Sharif.
At the inquiry, Barak and Ben Ami adopted different strategies for denying responsibility for the deaths, though both agreed that there had been serious "intelligence failures." Presumably, they were secure in the knowledge that Shin Bet officers will not be testifying before the inquiry.
Barak directed his venom at an "extremist 0.5 per cent" of the Palestinian population in Israel that was bent on "deliberately fomenting violence by stoking the true feelings of frustration and discrimination of the Israeli Arab population." He pointed the finger at Knesset member Azmi Bishara's Balad Party and the outlawed Sons of the Village movement for trying to "echo" the violence in the occupied territories.
Of the heavily armed visit by Sharon to Haram Al-Sharif on 28 September 2000, Barak said that, while he would have "preferred" that Sharon did not make the visit, he blamed Yasser Arafat for fomenting the violence. He said had Sharon not visited the site, the Palestinian Authority chairman would have found an excuse to launch the Intifada anyhow.
Barak added that the police and Shin Bet had advised the government that the visit would not lead to public disorder. He also rejected accusations that the police had used excessive force in dispersing Muslim demonstrators at Haram Al- Sharif, even though five Palestinians were shot dead the day after Sharon's visit. "The rioters are responsible for the riots, as are those who incited them," he said.
The former prime minister used his testimony to lavishly praise the police in Galilee, singling out commanding officer Alik Ron, who he said was a man "you could see is honest just by looking at him." Throughout his remarks, Barak worked hard to adopt a tone of resigned neutrality -- as though he had simply been a passive spectator of the events of September and October 2000. His testimony was supposed to continue into a second day, but Justice Or cut it short -- apparently deciding that there was no point in continuing when the former prime minister was prepared to reveal almost no details about the events of last year.
Asked about the behaviour of individual officers, Barak repeatedly said that he could not speak definitively about past events. This prompted a pointed comment from one of the members of the inquiry, Professor Shimon Shamir, who said: "We are a commission of past inquiry."
Ben Ami was slightly more forthcoming -- using his testimony to settle scores with a police command he felt had disobeyed him and refused to implement his directives. His evidence, however, only served to paint a dismal picture of a security minister with almost no control over police leadership bent on seeking a violent confrontation with the country's Palestinian minority.
Unlike Barak, Ben Ami was severely critical of Ron, saying he behaved "like a general" rather than a policeman. Ben Ami suggested that police reports may have exaggerated the violence of the demonstrations to justify their tactics of brutal suppression. The former minister also claimed he was kept in the dark by the police command. He said he only found out that snipers had been used in Umm Al-Fahm and Nazareth when the admissions by the police to the Or Commission were made public earlier this year. Asked what he thought of the unit's deployment, he said it was "one of the worst things I can conceive of in a democracy."
Ben Ami opposed the use of rubber bullets, he said, and ordered the police to show restraint from the outset. He also ordered chief police inspector Yehuda Wilk to disarm the police on 4 October, when the number of casualties became clear. Wilk refused, saying the situation was too dangerous.
In an illuminating moment, Ben Ami showed his exasperation with the discriminatory attitudes of Israel's security services towards its Palestinian minority. He said he was pleased to hear from Wilk that rubber bullets were being used against Jewish rioters in Acre. "I jumped when I heard this. I said, 'Finally, there is equal treatment [for Jews and Arabs]'." The report, however, turned out to be untrue: no rubber bullets had been used against the Jewish rioters.
Ben Ami added to the inquiry's confusion about the orders concerning the Wadi Ara road, the strategic highway close to Umm Al-Fahm where police shot dead three protesters. Ron had testified that Wilk ordered him to keep the road open at all costs, while Wilk said he gave no such instructions. Ben Ami, however, said he told Wilk to close the road. "The road was opened contrary to the order," he said.
Justice Or questioned Ben Ami closely about his failure to order an immediate investigation into the shootings, suggesting that such an investigation could have thrown much light on what really happened. Ben Ami replied that he had been too preoccupied with preventing the killings. Or observed: "There is no contradiction between ordering a report and stopping the killing."
The next stage expected by lawyers is for the inquiry to recall selected officials for more detailed cross-examination before recommending criminal charges be lodged against some of the participants in the event.
4 oct 2000

Investigating the death of 13 Israeli Arabs in the October 2000 riots is a turning point in the protagonist's life.
Three cases against police officers who shot dead Israeli Arabs in riots in October 2000 were improperly closed, Israel Democracy Institute claims.
Three cases against police officers who shot dead Israeli Arabs in the October 2000 riots were improperly closed due to bias, the Israel Democracy Institute will claim in a report to be released soon. The comprehensive study will charge that the prosecution was guilty of "biased conduct in analyzing evidence."
The study looks into the circumstances that led then attorney general Menachem Mazuz to adopt the State Prosecution's recommendation to close - for lack of evidence - the inquiries into the death of three men.
Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer and former Haifa district attorney Lina Saba, who conducted the study, examined thoroughly dozens of pieces of evidence that accumulated in the files.
According to the study, Rami Ghara, of Jatt, was killed on October 1 from a rubber-coated bullet that hit him in the eye. He was in a garage when he was shot, while police outside were dispersing demonstrators throwing stones at the intersection at the village's entrance.
Ahmad Jabarin, of Muawiya, was also killed on October 1 from a rubber bullet in the eye, while the security forces clashed with the angry crowd in the Umm al Fahm intersection.
Maslah Abu-Jihad, of Gaza, was killed on October 2 from sniper fire in the Umm al-Fahm area. Five others were injured in that incident.
The study shows that closing these three cases was unjustified and the Department for Investigating Policemen and the prosecution did not complete the investigation. The examination also showed the prosecution took a biased approach in analyzing the evidence.
When witnesses gave testimonies that could substantiate the evidence against the person or persons suspected of causing the death, the prosecution completely ignored them. In other cases it disqualified the testimonies, claiming inaccuracies, without sorting out these inaccuracies with the witnesses.
When witnesses gave more than one version, the prosecution chose, without any explanation, the one advancing its "lack of evidence" thesis.
In the investigation into the death of Ahmad Jabarin, for example, the prosecution did not accept the strong evidence in the case - including the suspect's confession that he was the only one who had fired rubber bullets at the site. Instead, the prosecution decided to doubt the confession by interpreting it in its own way, the study found. The prosecution did not check this with the suspect but decided that when he claimed only he could have fired the rubber bullet, he meant that only he had a rifle, while the others had an M-16, which, according to some testimonies could also fire rubber bullets.
Another example of the prosecution's alleged biased approach is mentioned in connection with the incriminating evidence regarding the testimony of one of the policemen at the site, who gave two versions. In one version he said he fired rubber bullets, which could weaken the evidence against the officer suspected of shooting. In a later version he said that in the absence of other means he fired live bullets.
The prosecution preferred the first version, with no explanation, the study says, and on its basis decided the officer's version raised doubt about whether he was the only one who had fired rubber bullets.
The study claims to show bias in the prosecution's interpretation and analyzing evidence.
The researchers say the prosecution opted to use the weaker evidence to establish findings and chose testimonies that advanced closing the case, sometimes out of context.
In the case of Rami Ghara's death, the study found that the prosecution used testimonies of Watad village residents Abed Alrahim, Osama Ghara and Mohsan Marwan. The prosecution had earlier disqualified all the villagers' testimonies as unreliable. It did so even though one of the witnesses - Osama Ghara - doubted his memory and Marwan's testimony was hearsay.
"You can't say the villagers testimonies are unreliable and on theother hand choose from among them, with no real explanation, statements that serve the prosecution's thesis and quote only them," the researchers wrote.
The prosecution decided that the evidence of the officer suspected of the killing was unreliable and pointed out all the contradictions in his versions and on the other hand used his statements to establish findings about the danger he and other officers were in.
Jabarin's father, Ibrahim, of the village Muawiya, said yesterday the families of those killed have been saying for years that the cases were closed before completing the investigation and that they had been caused an injustice.
Three cases against police officers who shot dead Israeli Arabs in riots in October 2000 were improperly closed, Israel Democracy Institute claims.
Three cases against police officers who shot dead Israeli Arabs in the October 2000 riots were improperly closed due to bias, the Israel Democracy Institute will claim in a report to be released soon. The comprehensive study will charge that the prosecution was guilty of "biased conduct in analyzing evidence."
The study looks into the circumstances that led then attorney general Menachem Mazuz to adopt the State Prosecution's recommendation to close - for lack of evidence - the inquiries into the death of three men.
Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer and former Haifa district attorney Lina Saba, who conducted the study, examined thoroughly dozens of pieces of evidence that accumulated in the files.
According to the study, Rami Ghara, of Jatt, was killed on October 1 from a rubber-coated bullet that hit him in the eye. He was in a garage when he was shot, while police outside were dispersing demonstrators throwing stones at the intersection at the village's entrance.
Ahmad Jabarin, of Muawiya, was also killed on October 1 from a rubber bullet in the eye, while the security forces clashed with the angry crowd in the Umm al Fahm intersection.
Maslah Abu-Jihad, of Gaza, was killed on October 2 from sniper fire in the Umm al-Fahm area. Five others were injured in that incident.
The study shows that closing these three cases was unjustified and the Department for Investigating Policemen and the prosecution did not complete the investigation. The examination also showed the prosecution took a biased approach in analyzing the evidence.
When witnesses gave testimonies that could substantiate the evidence against the person or persons suspected of causing the death, the prosecution completely ignored them. In other cases it disqualified the testimonies, claiming inaccuracies, without sorting out these inaccuracies with the witnesses.
When witnesses gave more than one version, the prosecution chose, without any explanation, the one advancing its "lack of evidence" thesis.
In the investigation into the death of Ahmad Jabarin, for example, the prosecution did not accept the strong evidence in the case - including the suspect's confession that he was the only one who had fired rubber bullets at the site. Instead, the prosecution decided to doubt the confession by interpreting it in its own way, the study found. The prosecution did not check this with the suspect but decided that when he claimed only he could have fired the rubber bullet, he meant that only he had a rifle, while the others had an M-16, which, according to some testimonies could also fire rubber bullets.
Another example of the prosecution's alleged biased approach is mentioned in connection with the incriminating evidence regarding the testimony of one of the policemen at the site, who gave two versions. In one version he said he fired rubber bullets, which could weaken the evidence against the officer suspected of shooting. In a later version he said that in the absence of other means he fired live bullets.
The prosecution preferred the first version, with no explanation, the study says, and on its basis decided the officer's version raised doubt about whether he was the only one who had fired rubber bullets.
The study claims to show bias in the prosecution's interpretation and analyzing evidence.
The researchers say the prosecution opted to use the weaker evidence to establish findings and chose testimonies that advanced closing the case, sometimes out of context.
In the case of Rami Ghara's death, the study found that the prosecution used testimonies of Watad village residents Abed Alrahim, Osama Ghara and Mohsan Marwan. The prosecution had earlier disqualified all the villagers' testimonies as unreliable. It did so even though one of the witnesses - Osama Ghara - doubted his memory and Marwan's testimony was hearsay.
"You can't say the villagers testimonies are unreliable and on theother hand choose from among them, with no real explanation, statements that serve the prosecution's thesis and quote only them," the researchers wrote.
The prosecution decided that the evidence of the officer suspected of the killing was unreliable and pointed out all the contradictions in his versions and on the other hand used his statements to establish findings about the danger he and other officers were in.
Jabarin's father, Ibrahim, of the village Muawiya, said yesterday the families of those killed have been saying for years that the cases were closed before completing the investigation and that they had been caused an injustice.
2 oct 2000
Twenty-eight dead, 700 wounded, as Israeli-Palestinian clashes wreck hope of Middle East peace
From their concrete fortress the Israeli gunners who inflicted the death that has become the symbol of these days of blood and rage, opened up with anti-tank missiles yesterday - blasting away hopes of an end to violence in the Middle East. By nightfall, the toll from four days of rioting across the West Bank and Gaza stood at 28 dead, and more than 700 wounded. The battle for Jerusalem - as the Palestinians call these clashes - had racked up the worst violence in four years, and made a martyr of a 12-year-old boy.
Outside the Israeli command post at Netzarim junction, where Rami al-Dirreh, 12, spent the last terrifying moments of his life on Saturday, the renewed demand for a ceasefire by Israel's prime minister, Ehud Barak, was met with derision yesterday.
Two more Palestinians were killed at the junction yesterday, and more than 40 injured. Amid angry recrimination between Mr Barak and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, the violence is spreading. Yesterday, clashes erupted for the first time in Israel proper.
"A ceasefire? How can you have a ceasefire between stones and guns. It's a big joke," said Brigadier-General Osama al-Ali, who is in charge of security cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli forces. "The only possibility for ceasefire is to remove a military camp from our territory. They must take their boot off our heads."
By yesterday afternoon, every Palestinian in Gaza appeared to have seen the sickening television footage of Rami's death. Hit by four bullets, he collapsed in his father's arms on Saturday, after cowering behind a concrete water butt during a gun battle between the Israelis in their armoured watchtowers and Palestinian youths.
His father, who was hit by eight bullets, had waved desperately at the Israelis on the other side of the junction to let his son live. But the 15 craters in the patch of wall where they were trapped make it plain that the Israelis directed their machine guns on the pair. Rami became their target.
So did the ambulance driver who was shot dead when he tried to reach the boy. "There was still some breath left in him when we reached the ambulance, but when we opened the doors, they started shooting again," Bassam al-Bilbays, who was riding with the medic, said.
Which is why a day later, Gen Ali was in no mood to heed Israeli demands for a ceasefire. When the Palestinian rioters began to gather, taunting the soldiers until they exchanged rubber bullets for live rounds, he was railing against the mere presence of Israeli forces in "the belly of Palestine".
The fortress, which guards the approach to the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, in the middle of Gaza, is a symbol for the frustrations of Palestinian self-rule, and a regular source of friction. A soldier was killed here last week, a prelude to the explosion of fury that followed Thursday's visit to a sacred Muslim site by the hardline Israeli leader Ariel Sharon.
Palestinians saw his visit as a symbol of Israel's claims to their holiest shrine, the Haram al-Sharif, where the Prophet Mohammed rode to heaven. They see the fortress at Netzarim as a symbol of the fact that there is no sign of peace, or of a Palestinian state.
"We see our kids dying and we can not help them," Gen Ali raged. "They [the Israelis] are terrorists. Even though they are wearing army uniforms, that is exactly what they are."
The protests have cast a powerful spell on the young. Yesterday children as young as six and eight set up roadblocks of burning tyres on roads in Gaza.
A few days ago, in Rami's breeze block and corrugated tin-roofed home in the Bourij refugee camp, he was mesmerised by footage of the riots on television. "When he saw what happened in Jerusalem on TV, he asked me: 'Can I go to join the protests in Net zarim?' I did not dare to answer him. I did not want him to go," said his mother, Amal.
Death sought Rami out anyway; the boy was killed as he returned from a shopping trip to Gaza, where he and his father had looked at a used car.
In Bourij, where nearly all of the houses have a photograph of the Dome of the Rock, they are calling Rami a martyr for Jerusalem. His mother is afraid to tell her five younger children how he died - in case they fall under the martyr's spell. "Nothing good will come of this. We will have many more martyrs, and nothing will change," she said.
And the dead will be even younger than Rami. Among those killed yesterday was a 10-year-old boy, shot dead by Israeli helicopter gunships near a Jewish enclave in the West Bank city of Nablus. Fighting raged too in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Hebron, and in Jerusalem security forces evacuated Jews from their holiest shrine, the Western Wall, because of tension.
Most worrying for Mr Barak was the spread of the violence to Israel proper yesterday. In Nazareth, hundreds of masked youths threw stones at Israeli police near the spot where the angel Gabriel is believed to have foretold the birth of Jesus. One Israeli Arab was killed and dozens injured in clashes in the northern town of Umm al-Fahim.
Nevertheless, Mr Barak was adamant that it fell to the Palestinian forces - and to Mr Arafat - to end the violence. "Absence of such activity may bring about an escalation," a statement from his office said. He repeated Israel's claim that it only fired on protesters when the lives of soldiers and civilians were endangered.
In reply, Mr Arafat demanded that Israel first withdraw its forces from the entrances of Palestinian towns, and stop firing on his people. He threatened to take several "measures" if Israel did not stop the bloodshed in 24 hours, including an appeal to the UN security council.
The fighting talk from both men comes despite the personal intervention of President Bill Clinton, who called on both sides to cool tempers.
From their concrete fortress the Israeli gunners who inflicted the death that has become the symbol of these days of blood and rage, opened up with anti-tank missiles yesterday - blasting away hopes of an end to violence in the Middle East. By nightfall, the toll from four days of rioting across the West Bank and Gaza stood at 28 dead, and more than 700 wounded. The battle for Jerusalem - as the Palestinians call these clashes - had racked up the worst violence in four years, and made a martyr of a 12-year-old boy.
Outside the Israeli command post at Netzarim junction, where Rami al-Dirreh, 12, spent the last terrifying moments of his life on Saturday, the renewed demand for a ceasefire by Israel's prime minister, Ehud Barak, was met with derision yesterday.
Two more Palestinians were killed at the junction yesterday, and more than 40 injured. Amid angry recrimination between Mr Barak and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, the violence is spreading. Yesterday, clashes erupted for the first time in Israel proper.
"A ceasefire? How can you have a ceasefire between stones and guns. It's a big joke," said Brigadier-General Osama al-Ali, who is in charge of security cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli forces. "The only possibility for ceasefire is to remove a military camp from our territory. They must take their boot off our heads."
By yesterday afternoon, every Palestinian in Gaza appeared to have seen the sickening television footage of Rami's death. Hit by four bullets, he collapsed in his father's arms on Saturday, after cowering behind a concrete water butt during a gun battle between the Israelis in their armoured watchtowers and Palestinian youths.
His father, who was hit by eight bullets, had waved desperately at the Israelis on the other side of the junction to let his son live. But the 15 craters in the patch of wall where they were trapped make it plain that the Israelis directed their machine guns on the pair. Rami became their target.
So did the ambulance driver who was shot dead when he tried to reach the boy. "There was still some breath left in him when we reached the ambulance, but when we opened the doors, they started shooting again," Bassam al-Bilbays, who was riding with the medic, said.
Which is why a day later, Gen Ali was in no mood to heed Israeli demands for a ceasefire. When the Palestinian rioters began to gather, taunting the soldiers until they exchanged rubber bullets for live rounds, he was railing against the mere presence of Israeli forces in "the belly of Palestine".
The fortress, which guards the approach to the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, in the middle of Gaza, is a symbol for the frustrations of Palestinian self-rule, and a regular source of friction. A soldier was killed here last week, a prelude to the explosion of fury that followed Thursday's visit to a sacred Muslim site by the hardline Israeli leader Ariel Sharon.
Palestinians saw his visit as a symbol of Israel's claims to their holiest shrine, the Haram al-Sharif, where the Prophet Mohammed rode to heaven. They see the fortress at Netzarim as a symbol of the fact that there is no sign of peace, or of a Palestinian state.
"We see our kids dying and we can not help them," Gen Ali raged. "They [the Israelis] are terrorists. Even though they are wearing army uniforms, that is exactly what they are."
The protests have cast a powerful spell on the young. Yesterday children as young as six and eight set up roadblocks of burning tyres on roads in Gaza.
A few days ago, in Rami's breeze block and corrugated tin-roofed home in the Bourij refugee camp, he was mesmerised by footage of the riots on television. "When he saw what happened in Jerusalem on TV, he asked me: 'Can I go to join the protests in Net zarim?' I did not dare to answer him. I did not want him to go," said his mother, Amal.
Death sought Rami out anyway; the boy was killed as he returned from a shopping trip to Gaza, where he and his father had looked at a used car.
In Bourij, where nearly all of the houses have a photograph of the Dome of the Rock, they are calling Rami a martyr for Jerusalem. His mother is afraid to tell her five younger children how he died - in case they fall under the martyr's spell. "Nothing good will come of this. We will have many more martyrs, and nothing will change," she said.
And the dead will be even younger than Rami. Among those killed yesterday was a 10-year-old boy, shot dead by Israeli helicopter gunships near a Jewish enclave in the West Bank city of Nablus. Fighting raged too in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Hebron, and in Jerusalem security forces evacuated Jews from their holiest shrine, the Western Wall, because of tension.
Most worrying for Mr Barak was the spread of the violence to Israel proper yesterday. In Nazareth, hundreds of masked youths threw stones at Israeli police near the spot where the angel Gabriel is believed to have foretold the birth of Jesus. One Israeli Arab was killed and dozens injured in clashes in the northern town of Umm al-Fahim.
Nevertheless, Mr Barak was adamant that it fell to the Palestinian forces - and to Mr Arafat - to end the violence. "Absence of such activity may bring about an escalation," a statement from his office said. He repeated Israel's claim that it only fired on protesters when the lives of soldiers and civilians were endangered.
In reply, Mr Arafat demanded that Israel first withdraw its forces from the entrances of Palestinian towns, and stop firing on his people. He threatened to take several "measures" if Israel did not stop the bloodshed in 24 hours, including an appeal to the UN security council.
The fighting talk from both men comes despite the personal intervention of President Bill Clinton, who called on both sides to cool tempers.
1 oct 2000