No to starvation, no to siege

Hundreds of Palestinian teenagers demonstrated in an organized march through Ramalah streets on August 4 in protest against the Israeli clampdown in the West Bank, holding banners reading, "No to starvation, no to siege."

After the bomb blasts, which killed 15 people and wounded 150 people in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the borders between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza strip closed for all Palestinians. He also ordered eight West Bank towns under Palestinians self-rule to be sealed off, preventing movement between the autonomous areas and closed international border crossings leading to the territories.

Palestinian officials charge that the closures cause widespread hardship, preventing tens of thousands of laborers from reaching their jobs inside Israel and impeding movement within the territories, including of food and medicine.

Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, charged that the clampdown is a declaration of war, but Netanyahu rejected the complaint at a cabinet meeting saying, "We have not declared war on the Palestinian people, but on terrorists."