Discovering Oslo 2 Diary
Wednesday 26 March 1997
Abu Ghnaim Diary: "Birzeit students join in", part 3
Eventually we go down into the melee. I meet Kareem, a friend of Kifah’s. His eyes are running from the gas. We are laughing at our streaming faces. I meet up with Yasser, who is eating an onion. Michael O'Neill (left), an international student at Birzeit, has come down today for the experience. He has begun an on-line journal since arriving here and is taking the opportunity to see it live after only having seen it on TV. I’m enjoying watching him getting teargassed, as this reduces the likelihood that he will complain about my smoking the next time he comes round to my house. We find out when the photos are processed that, while I was on the mountain taking pictures of the shebab throwing back the teargas, I inadvertantly took one of him. I head off to the front line, via the damp back passages behind the buildings lining the street. It’s crazy out there, with rubber bullets flying down the street and everyone ducking. This passage is full of CNN journalists moving the same direction. An American sound man is crying from the teargas, with his hand up to his face. "Hell, who would have thought we would be standing here one day sniffing onions," he says, "we’re really getting screwed."
Back on the street, each time a new teargas canister lands, there is a scrabble to grab it and throw it back at the soldiers. Many of these succeed, the smiles on the faces of the soldiers dying as the trail of smoke heads back in their direction. An American working out here, standing with journalists on the soldiers’ side, later told me that one time when this happened he couldn't stop exclaiming, "Yeah!" I can only imagine what the Israeli thought if he had assumed the guy was a journalist.
Out from the back and down the alley to the front. There are shabab crouched behind a portabin only 10 meters or so from the soldiers, jumping up every now and then to throw stones and ducking before the rubber bullets come. Other shabab in our alley are breaking stones and throwing them out to the isolated defenders of the portabin. The light is beautiful here, and I get a little too artistic with the cameras as a result, instead of concentrating on the real confrontations around (below). I get a picture of the face of the masked stone-thrower above, that everyone likes later, available as a high (64K) and higher (163K) resolution JPG. 
Having two cameras is definitely recommended, as it leaves you free to concentrate on making sure no one is pointing anything dangerous at you, and it speeds the transition between telephoto and a normal lens. The guys a few feet away are only 10 meters from the soldiers, using the portabin and a muqlayya'.
I return to base camp as the teargas gets stronger, a pile of gravel outside a building under construction and chat with Yasser and Hanan. Kifah, who I missed earlier, suddenly arrives out of a cloud of teargas into our pile of now-sliding stones, having leapt from the other side. He’s been watching from up closer. After shaking hands, we exchange insults and swap details of what we have seen. Michael takes a couple of photos, of Yasser, Hanan and me and of Kifah (above right). Around us, out in the open, everyone periodically continues to duck as the rubber bullets fly. After a while, when the gas has lessened, I go back up front. I see a journalist looking like an elephant, in a very strange teargas mask.
I know that I can’t stop, as I notice it seems to be making me weaker and weaker. If I got stuck here I would suffocate. There have been many people overcome by the gas today (right) and I don’t want to be one of them. 
Most people have bad headaches later. We finally get home. Someone who was at the hospital tells us that 80 were treated for teargas and rubber bullet injuries. The second gas, it seems, was made in Germany, although I don’t have any details beyond that, apart from four days later one effect - reoccurring nausea - is still with me.
