Ramallah: Difference between revisions

As in most other Palestinian cities, Ramallah residents participated in the [[First Intifada]] from the very beginning. The [[Intifada Unified Leadership]], an umbrella organization of various Palestinian factions, distributed weekly bulletins on the streets of Ramallah with a schedule of the daily protests, strikes, and other violent or non-violent acts against the Israeli patrols in the city. Arab terrorism and atrocities against Jewish targets, emanating from the Israeli-administrated areas, including Ramallah, became common. Demonstrations consisted mainly of burning tires in the streets and throwing stones and [[Molotov cocktail]]s, although some sources cite instances of use of hand grenades, explosives, and gunfire that caused some Israeli fatalities and injuries. The IDF responded with tear gas or rubber or live ammunition, and over a hundred Palestinians from the Ramallah area were killed and many more wounded{{Fact|date=October 2007}}. Schools in Ramallah, including private schools such as the Friends Schools, St. Joseph's, and others, were forcibly shut down by the CA, and most K-12 students lost at least a year of school in 1988-1989 before schools were very gradually allowed to reopen for limited hours. House-arrest style curfews on the whole population were also commonplace, and the CA began to severely limit its services, making it very difficult to travel or export goods or register new capital property, in what Palestinians regarded as collective punishment. In response to the closure of schools, residents organized home schooling sessions: any teacher in a particular neighborhood would hold secret classes in their subject of expertise for students who lived nearby to make up what was missed in school; this became one of the few symbols of civil disobedience.<ref>[http://www.jmcc.org/research/reports/educate.htm jmcc.org/research/reports/educate.htm]</ref> The Intifada leadership also organized days of "tree planting" and other events designed to promote civil disobedience. However, the Intifada leadership also repeated some of the old tactics of pre-1948 Palestine, such as ordering general strikes in which no commercial businesses were allowed to open and no cars were allowed on the streets.