The only sound we could hear was the whir of the newly purchased fan, which lapped us with streams of cool air. At that moment, we could easily have been mistaken for a bunch of twenty-somethings on summer vacation. We laid quietly on the couches, exhausted by the day's happenings. God..
I keep thinking that it can't get any more intense.. Every situation seems like the worst possible thing until the next day happens.. I was in the net cafe teaching some techies about motherboard shorts when I heard the first spate of shooting.. An Israeli tank had run over a utility pole for kicks and ended up being caught in the electric wires that came down when the pole did.. The soldiers panicked. Two tanks huddled around the immobilized one, and they started shooting. They shot one of the reporters, and then another. One of them will live. I don't know about the other one.. A single bullet put a 7 cm gash in his femoral artery.. The guy flatlined for 14 minutes on the table.. The best case scenario is still not terribly good.. His name is Imad abu Zahrah.. The other guy was shot three times in his bulletproof vest and once in his ankle while trying to haul his friend out of the line of fire..
Our group of internationals has the last shots of Imad still alive. He was stumbling into a taxi while bleeding profusely. The area was surreal in its emptiness.. Nobody was on the street. Everybody was very upset about what happened to Imad, but people were even more upset about what would happen tomorrow.. While the Israelis were paralyzed, a local teenager jumped on one of the tanks, unscrewed one of the mounted guns, and ran away with it.. The Israelis weren't going to let that pass. After all, they are most famous for their collective punishment..
tarek