Situation in Gaza:

We reach Gaza after the intense Israeli bombardment which destroyed the Palestinian TV satellite, the offices of the youth and women's movements and of Al-Fatah, various bases of the security forces and some poor people's homes in the Beach Camp refugee settlement in the city of Gaza.

In the camp we are surrounded by hordes of children and teenagers. Among them are young men who will soon set off with their slings for the Israeli checkpoints, and may even die. The bombed houses were inhabited by extended families with grandparents and children. A young girl has her head bandaged and her clothes are still stained with blood. The old grandmother tells us tearfully "we had just rebuilt the walls, but that's not what bothers me, it's the little ones who are afraid. I was asleep and was woken by an explosion and pieces of the ceiling falling on me. Why should my little ones have to live in fear? What have we done to them? They've already taken my house in Jaffa, I arrived here in '48 in a tiny boat. Will I ever be able to live in peace?"

The Wounded and the Dead:

The Shifa hospital is very overcrowded, even with its ordinary patients, but in these last 50 days the ambulances have been arriving continually. A path opens for us among the friends and relations of the wounded in this new Intifada. We enter a ward where there are five young men in a coma, all hit in the head, three of them by bullets covered with a layer of rubber and a core of hard metal. In the wards there are young people who have lost an eye, some who are wounded in the abdomen and others with legs or arms amputated. Sorrowful mothers or friends are at their bedsides. When we come in they look at us with a distant gaze. They respond to our embarrassed smiles with faint smiles of their own. It's terrible.

In other rooms there are young people who have been hit in the back and will spend their lives in wheelchairs. Most of them are young men born and raised in the refugee camps. Rafeed, wounded in the abdomen in the early days of the Intifada, is now better. He has very bright eyes and tells me that he will go back to throwing stones because, he says, "they have to go, we've had enough of them taking everything from us, of then keeping us segregated in Gaza. I would like to come to Italy, but I'd be happy just to go to Hebron to see my friend Rahed".

While we are leaving the hospital an ambulance arrives. We wait: one man is dead and another is seriously injured. We are with an official from the Ministry of Agriculture who is going to accompany us on a visit to the area near the settlement of Kafar Dorom. He looks at the body of the man they've brought in, starts to cry and follows the body: it's his cousin.

Arafat's Pain:

We go on our way accompanied by Jamal Zakout, a FIDA official deported from Israel during the first Intifada. We are off to meet President Arafat, and I am expecting a long wait, everyone knows how imprecise Arafat is in his appointments with visitors. I am wrong: this time he is punctual. I thought he was in worse health. He doesn't have his usual liveliness, nor the bravura of someone looking for a fight; it seems that he is full of sadness for the loss of young lives, for the injured, for the orange trees uprooted by the Israeli soldiers to defend their colonies.

He asks: "Who says that the Israelis want peace? I have been everywhere, to Paris, to Sharm el Sheik, but nothing has been respected. It's clear that they don't want peace, you've seen it too, they have declared war. We've asked for an international force to protect us. The Security Council is undecided. The French propose sending observers. That's not what we want, it's not what international law provides for, but we have accepted it.

Barak has stopped everything, except the bombing which claims its victims among the civilian population. In the latest bombardments 162 people were injured including 17 children with bums all over their bodies. They want to strangle us economically, not just closing the roads into Israel for 130,000 workers, but also with an embargo on goods. Hundreds and hundreds of containers, including many full of medical supplies and medicine, are being held up on the borders with Egypt and Jordan. The Israelis refuse to give us our taxes back, they have turned off our water and electricity.

As you can see, what's happening is a military escalation and violence at all levels. I ask you and I ask myself why the international forces acted in Kosovo but nobody moves to help us. Why did all the forces in the world react in Iraq? Why doesn't anyone do anything for the Palestinians? If all this keeps on happening the whole region may explode. You've seen the demonstrations of support for the Palestinian people in the Arab countries." The telephone rings. Someone on the other end tells him that Egypt has decided to recall its ambassador to Tel Aviv and that Jordan is to do the same. The old president seems to cheer up a little. And he takes up where he left off: "You must understand that if the whole region explodes there will be repercussions in Europe too. From the United States we are not expecting any more help, you only have to see the cynicism of their spokespeople, every time there is a bombing against the Israelis, they bombard us with phones calls. But when they bomb us and shoot our kids in cold blood, the phone never rings.

I was hoping for more from the Conference of the European Union governments in Marseilles. We've always asked for Europe to play a part in the negotiations so as not to be left alone with people who brutalize us and don’t respect our basic human rights or any civilized laws. We are still looking to Europe, but our disillusionment is growing."

Arafat accompanies us to the door and we continue on our way towards the central area of Gaza, where the settlements of Gush Katif, Kafar Dorom and Netzarim cut Gaza in two and where every day young Palestinians, and very occasionally Israelis, continue to die. Until when? Until Europe learns to be less hesitant in defending the rights of the Palestinians? It should instead learn quickly, not just for humanitarian reasons or in coherence with the values of democracy and human rights so pompously enunciated, but also in defence of the economic interests and stability of Europe.

Geneva Convention & International Law:

The Arab world is close to us. There is not a single diplomat, among those in service in the consulates of Jerusalem, who does not see clearly the disparity between the military occupiers of a country and the occupied people. Not one who does not think that the road of the Palestinian revolt was opened not just by the visit of Sharon, but also by the Israeli government's failure to apply the Oslo agreements and by the continuing growth of the colonies in the occupied territories. I have heard Consuls of European countries talk explicitly of Israel as a colonial power with a policy of annexation of as much land as possible. But the analyses of the diplomats stationed in the region are always mediated by the leaders of the respective countries and of the European Union, who do not have the courage to demand that Israel respect the Geneva Convention and the resolutions of the United Nations.

The Palestinians are asking for a return to the application of international law. Oslo put law aside to leave room for negotiations between the parties with the mediation of the United States. After almost eight years, the current crisis shows the failure of these negotiations. Israel's policy shows how little it believes in peace and in the return of the occupied territories. It is increasingly clear that Israel intends to occupy as much territory as possible: this was confirmed by Ben Gurion who declared "not only will we not dismantle our settlements, we shall make new ones."

After the Palestinian bombing of the school bus of the Kafar Dororn settlement, the colonists brought in ten new mobile homes. Europe must begin to take an active part in the negotiations together with the other countries of the United Nations Security Council. The presence of Solana at Sharm El Sheik was the first step, but this cannot continue to be a presence that waits outside the door. The Arab countries for their part, for the first time at the Cairo Summit, did not declare war on Israel but asked the international community to ensure observance of the UN resolutions. The day after, Barak broke off the negotiations. We must hope that no Arab country will give the Israelis the chance to unleash another "preventive" war as they did in 1967.

Security can be achieved only by curbing Israel:

Israel must be stopped, not just for, the stability of the region, not just so that there will no longer be suffering and deaths among both Palestinians and Israelis, not just so that the Palestinians will finally be able to live in a State of their own, but also for the future security and stability of Israel in the region. Israel has to make an incredible cultural leap and understand that to be partners in the Mediterranean region and in the Middle East it must start to consider first of all the Palestinians and the other countries of the region as real partners and not as enemies on whom to impose its own will and rules.

The European Union must make its political and economic influence felt. Israel needs Europe: we are its most important commercial partners. Israel must be reassured that on the European side no room will be left for any form of racism or anti-Semitism, but it must understand clearly that for Europe the principles of resolutions 242, 338 and 194 for the return or compensation of the refugees must be applied. We don't have much time, we have to stop the military escalation, and we have to make sure that there are no more victims, either Israelis or Palestinians.