MIDDLE EAST:Demonstrators want an end to the 'catastrophe' of occupation, writes Michael Jansenin Kalandia, the West Bank
PALESTINIAN CHILDREN hurried huge bunches of black balloons out of the basement cavern of the school at Kalandia refugee camp, filling the sandy football field with a seething mass of balloons, bobbing, weaving, dodging in the stiff wind. The balloons were tied together with string and bore messages from school children.
One called for an "end to Israel's occupation of Palestinian land", another urged the world to allow Palestinians to exercise their right to return to homes lost 60 years ago.
Girls painted their faces red, white, green and black, the colours of the Palestinian flag; boys wore black T-shirts with the words "I have Gaza on my mind" printed in white. There were 21,915 balloons in all, each representing a day in the Palestinian naqba or catastrophe which began with the proclamation of Israel on May 15th, 1948.
The balloons were divided up and released in the West Bank, Bethlehem and Jerusalem at two in the afternoon. In Kalandia they soared high in the sky on strong currents, swooped up over the top of an olive tree, evaded the delicate minaret of a mosque, then flew eastwards towards Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley.
Just outside the Kalandia checkpoint which cuts Ramallah and the West Bank off from Jerusalem, black smoke billowed from a burning tyre as young boys took shelter behind cement blocks.
Armed Israeli soldiers in full battle gear were positioned on the edge of the road which follows the 8m high wall flanking the checkpoint. Youths threw stones and the soldiers replied with rubber bullets, wounding several Palestinians most of whom escaped into the narrow alleyways of the camp. There were also clashes at the Erez terminal between Gaza and Israel and a peaceful sit-in by Palestinian students at the Hebrew University.
The release of the balloons and the clashes preceded US president George Bush's address to Israel's Knesset. He reiterated Washington's commitment to Israel, saying the US is "proud to be Israel's closest ally and best friend".
He spoke of his visit yesterday morning to the Masada fortress where Jewish fighters were killed in a last stand against the Romans in AD 73. "Masada will not fall again," he said. Iran should not be permitted to develop nuclear weapons, he said, as he castigated Hamas, Hizbullah and al-Qaeda as evil-doers. He mentioned Palesti- nians just once when he said they should have the homeland "they dream of and deserve".
Leila Shadid, Palestinian delegate to the EU, said: "It is astonishing that in the heart of Jerusalem which is - whether he wants to admit it or not - a city for two peoples, he does not speak of the talks begun last November in Annapolis or his vision of a two-state solution. He told us Hamas, Hizbullah and al-Qaeda are the world's enemies and he wants Israel's help in fighting them."
Palestinians also commemorated the naqba with an exhibition of photographs of life in the country before 1948, a concert of music from the 1940s, and a display of wax figures of Palestinians taking flight from Israeli forces six decades ago.
Each of the 3,000 small figurines, suspended on a sloping angle from the ceiling of an east Jerusalem art gallery, represented someone who had told their story to Palestinian artists trained by Scottish artist Jane Frere at workshops in refugee camps.
The exhibition is set to travel to the Arab world and Europe and will feature at the Edinburgh festival.