Word: intifadeh
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Dates: during 1988-1988
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...days, raw concrete walls and army patrols sealed off Jalazun from the world. The Palestinian refugee camp near Ramallah in the West Bank was under curfew as punishment for its violent contributions to the intifadeh (uprising). Electricity was cut; cooking gas dwindled. As the men languished at home, the women organized survival. Around 3 a.m. most days, groups of women sneaked out of the camp and hid in nearby villages. During the day, they bought scarce meat and vegetables; at night they slipped back into Jalazun to feed their families...
Life is a little easier in Jalazun since the army lifted the curfew last month. Nonetheless, the intifadeh, now into its sixth month, has fundamentally altered daily life throughout the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Though the violence seems to be tapering off, Palestinians are settling into a pattern of sullen resistance. Spurred by orders from the uprising's leadership and restricted by countermeasures from the military authorities, the Palestinians are turning self-reliant to defy Israeli rule. And in just as many ways, Israel is struggling to reassert its control over daily Arab life in the territories...
...five months, leaving children to stay home or join the stone throwers in the streets. With few jobs in the West Bank and resistance to working in Israel itself, most men spend their days idly ( meeting on street corners. A Jalazun laborer who made $400 a month before the intifadeh is now lucky to earn a tenth of that. "We no longer eat meat," says Ali Abdul Khadar Khalil, 56, father of nine. "People are getting desperate." But, he adds defiantly, "any people searching for independence must remember it can't be achieved without suffering...
...orders from the army to stay open. Most days his door is open, but he spends the hours sipping coffee in his deserted shop, while his two dozen employees slump behind counters of glittering gold, olive-wood crucifixes and brass trinkets. Business is down more than 50% since the intifadeh began, and Lama's income does not cover his monthly overhead. But he still pays his workers. "What can we do, let their families starve?" he asks...
...Palestinians in the occupied territories seem prepared to pay a high price to prove that they are not totally under Israeli law. As the intifadeh drags on, the Arabs are increasingly intent on proving that they would rather change their way of life than their mind...