Intifada: recollections from the past
Palestine-Israel, History, 12/22/1997

Life goes on in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jabalia in the Gaza Strip. A huge portrait of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat decorates the front of the main building which, during the years of Israeli military occupation, served as headquarters for the Israeli army. People still remember how, on the first day of the Palestinian uprising, they pelted the Israeli posts with stones and how soldiers taken by surprise sought refuge inside the compound as they had no clue how to absorb such an angry crowd.

Many things have changed since the Palestinian National Authority took over in 1994 but signs of sadness and depression are still there. Poverty, unemployment, rough conditions and the continued denial of Palestinian refugees' right to return to their homes in Palestine continue to characterize the lives of thousands of refugees in this camp, cradle of the Palestinian uprising, as many would like to call it.

When the Palestinian intifada, Arabic for uprising, broke out ten years ago, it was first at Jabalia when thousands took to the streets, attacked the adjacent Israeli military camp and pelted soldiers with stones and empty bottles. None of them at that moment, they now recall, ever imagined his action would have such a historic impact on the Palestinian struggle.

The Palestinian workers who were killed in that famous car accident that sparked off the uprising had all come from Jabalia. They were all heading back home on the afternoon of 8 December 1987. An Israeli lorry drove over a vehicle loaded with workers, killing four passengers and injuring the others.

When the news of the accident hit the street, it was almost impossible to convince the people that the accident was not intentional. "He steered his lorry towards our car and we could see he meant what he did," said one of the survivors later on his hospital bed in Gaza. Kamal Qadoura Hammoudeh, another survivor of the car accident, believes the lorry drove over their car on purpose. He said he was half asleep when the accident occurred. Asked how could he tell the accident was intentional if he was asleep he said his fellow passengers who survived told him how they saw the truck derailing itself and driving towards their vehicle.

Whether or not the accident was premeditated, one fact is beyond questioning: it had sparked off the seven year uprising against the Israeli occupation which in itself led to the historic signing of the interim peace accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel in 1994, first in Oslo and then formally at the White House.

Issam Mohammed Hammoudeh was one of the Palestinians killed in the famous car accident. His wife said she could never forget that day when her husband was killed. "The family father was killed and we were left without anybody to support us. We had been living a relatively easy life, but once my husband was killed we were badly in need of support. Thanks to many who donated food and money and helped us pass that tragic incident," she said. She added that her daughter was the first to hear the bad news. "She rushed into the house and said one of the neighbors confirmed her father was dead in the car accident. I do not remember whether I did not believe her or whether I did not want to believe her but it was a few minutes later that the bad news was found to be, unfortunately, true."

The wife said the Israelis never repatriated her for the loss of Issam. "They considered him one of the reasons that led to the uprising and refused to pay any compensation. After the PNA took over in the Gaza Strip, they started paying us some US $100 per month, but this is not enough."

Her son, Khaled, said he was only two years old when his father was killed. "All I know is that he was run over by an Israeli truck as he was on his way back from work. I think he is fully entitled to be considered a soldier in the PNA forces and we are entitled to receive a salary of a Palestinian soldier who fell in action."

Mohammed was only seven years old when the intifada broke out. He still remembers how Israeli soldiers rounded him up next to a wall and brutally beat and kicked him. "It was the brutal beating that I received from those soldiers that made me join the masses on the street later on and to become deeply involved in intifada activities," he said.

But Mohammed was not on his own. Thousands of Palestinians were beaten up by Israeli soldiers during the uprising, mainly after then defense minister Yitzhak Rabin gave his infamous orders to his soldiers to break the bones of Palestinian youths who demonstrate or throw stones at Israeli soldiers. It took Rabin, however, some years to understand that those whose bones he ordered to break have become his partners in the peace treaty, for which he was later assassinated by an extreme right wing activist.

Throughout the 21 years of Israeli military occupation that preceded the uprising, Palestinians had gone through numerous waves of revolt. But in 1987, the conditions were ripe for a protracted people's war, as some left wing Palestinians call it. Many had felt then that their cause was being forgotten and ignored by almost all the world. The economic hardships, the suppression by the Israeli military troops and the lack of a promising settlement for the Arab-Israeli conflict had served as the main motives for masses of Palestinians of all ages to take to the streets and stage demonstrations never seen before.

The Israeli army found itself in front of a new phenomenon where highly-trained soldiers on sophisticated warfare stood face to face against unarmed youths whose only weapons were stones and empty bottles. Later in the process of the revolt, Molotov cocktails became more popular.

Previous Stories:
  Uprising's 10th anniversary marked   (12/10/1997)
  A tamer Sheikh Yassin is back   (10/6/1997)
  New law would bar Palestinians from claiming compensation from Israel   (9/26/1997)

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