Young Palestinians seek new ways to achieve goals, 20 years after Second Intifada

Record ID: 1573722

  • Title: Young Palestinians seek new ways to achieve goals, 20 years after Second Intifada
  • Date: 28th September 2020
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (FILE - APRIL 2, 2020) (REUTERS) (MUTE) DRONE FOOTAGE OF JERUSALEM OLD CITY
  • Embargoed: 12th October 2020 12:48
  • Keywords: Al-aqsa mosque Drone footage Intifada bethlehem church of nativity gaza second intifada
  • Location: RAMALLAH AND BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK / GAZA CITY AND KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA / JERUSALEM
  • City: RAMALLAH AND BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK / GAZA CITY AND KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA / JERUSALEM
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Middle East
  • Reuters ID: LVA00BCXLQONB
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES / THIS EDIT CONTAINS VIDEO WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Al-Aqsa Mosque is as quiet today as it was turbulent twenty years ago, when it gave its name to the Palestinian uprising that began under its walls and carved a bloody new chapter in the Middle East.
    The Al-Aqsa Intifada - also known as The Second Intifada - began with rocks and tear gas, but escalated into a bloody conflict in which more than 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis were killed.
    When it petered out five years later suicide bomb attacks on Israeli cities, and Israeli air strikes and tank raids on Palestinian towns had polarised opinions on both sides.
    Looking over the Old City from the Mount of Olives, Palestinian Jerusalemite Ziad Abu Zayyad sees many parallels between the situation two decades ago and now.
    Now 33, the Palestinian statehood that he has sought all his life still seems as far off as it was then.
    But his generation also harbour vivid childhood memories of violence during the intifada years - and despite recent political setbacks, many are reluctant to revisit that trauma.
    The uprising began on September 28, 2000 after Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon - a former general detested by many Palestinians - held a walkabout on Jerusalem's most hotly contested holy site.
    Protests broke out around the hilltop plateau known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) and to Jews as the Temple Mount, and quickly escalated.
    Israel blamed then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who two months earlier at Camp David had failed to secure a peace agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
    Thirteen kilometres north of the Old City - a plaque near her home marks the exact distance - engineer Leen Anabtawi can see Jerusalem from one side of her balcony, and an Israeli settlement from the other.
    She remembers playing with empty bullets as a four-year-old in Jenin, her original city, during the intifada, her first encounter with Israelis, she said, being soldiers who took over the upper floors of her family's building to fire into Jenin's refugee camp, considered a stronghold for Palestinian militants.
    In Gaza, Mohammad Shahin was a regular visitor to the weekly protests on the Gaza-Israel border in 2018, hurling stones and rolling burning tyres at Israeli soldiers.
    While Israel looms large in discussions, many young Palestinians are also frustrated at their own leaders - plagued by years of infighting that has undermined young people's faith in political action.
    (Production: Ismael Khader, Mohammad Abu Ganeyeh, Ammar Awad, Bassam Massoud, Ilan Rosenberg, Stephen Farrel, Nuha Sharaf)
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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