Word: balata
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...along the chaotic main street of Nablus. As Kamel Salameh wove the VW through the morning rush-hour traffic, he slammed into nine-year-old Islam Atallah. She spun off the hood like a doll, dead. With screaming tires, Salameh turned his truck and sped off. He headed for Balata refugee camp at the edge of Nablus. The patrolmen chasing him were nervous. The camp is a no-go area for Yasser Arafat's police. Salameh swerved into Balata's narrow streets and disappeared. Soon after, the police found the truck abandoned, but Salameh had melted into the alleys...
That afternoon, back at the police station, the officers heard gunfire. It was Balata's answer to the lawmen's incursion. Forty stolen cars rolled slowly out of the camp, each loaded with car thieves firing rifles in the air. Behind them walked hundreds of Balata residents. The criminals drowned the police station and the municipality in the deafening racket of their Kalashnikovs. The people of Nablus fled in fear, and their rulers--the mayor appointed by Arafat, the police chief, the Governor--all got the message: Back off. "Every day there's a fight between someone from Balata...