Just another day on the West Bank

EVEN before dawn, it began. Just after 2am on day 523 of the Palestinian intifada, and Israeli tanks rolled into the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza in another security crackdown. An hour later, they were entering the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank, where six Palestinians were killed.

By the time darkness fell again, and the Israeli forces were once again shelling Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah base, there were at least 16 more Palestinians dead. The figure included five children, and a doctor whose ambulance was hit.

It was just another day in the Middle East, but it brought to 1,043 the number of Palestinians killed over the past 17 months. No fewer than 312 Israelis have died in the same period, and most news agencies admit they find it difficult to be sure of the toll.