Gaza : Waiting for peace | Reportage | Arte

Just a little over a year ago, Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem upon which stands the al-Aqsa Mosque sparked renewed violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories. In this documentary we spend 48 hours in the streets of Ramallah with Palestinian ambulance drivers of the Red Crescent.” These emergency volunteers are present for the slightest occurrence at every crossroads of this town where President Arafat has his residence. The Palestinian ambulance drivers who are constantly at risk from bullets keep watch along the sides of the dusty roads where fighting is going on between those of the Intifada and those of the Tsahal. This urban guerilla warfare makes up the daily décor of a strange ballet where the provocation is always real, and the retort always unpredictable. The day after the two suicide attacks which bloodied the streets of Jerusalem, the military occupation of Ramallah began. Because the colonists who live a little higher shoot at the ambulances as they are leaving, the emergency drivers take them out at the end of the day, ironically foreseeing “a lovely night.” The next day, there is a terrible silence in the ambulance: early in the morning three children, ages 5, 7 and 12 years old, are being rushed to the hospital. They were gravely wounded by shrapnel shot into their home by a Tsahal tank.”