Lull

All quiet on the West Bank

May 7, 2005  Leave a comment

Ha’aretz reports:

Palestinians on Friday morning fired an anti-tank rocket at a school bus carrying children outside the southern Gaza Strip settlement of Kfar Darom, shaking the fragile lull in violence. The rocket failed to hit the bus.

Shooting rockets at a school bus is an evil thing to do; it may well be said to “shake” a “fragile lull in violence”. Presumably, there had been no violence for a while previously.

The article later refers to “the de facto ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Authority”, which was announced by Sharon and Abbas on February 8 of this year. But just two days before the rocket incident, two Palestinian boys were shot dead by IDF soldiers, while they were throwing stones at a West Bank barrier construction site. As Ha’aretz also reports, the deputy company commander involved has now been suspended, because his conduct was “unreasonable”.

These two deaths on Wednesday, it appears, did not perturb the “fragile lull in violence”, which persisted serenely until the Palestinian attack of Friday morning. Can a lull have a blind spot?