I treated today more like a Sunday getting up late and not really doing very much. After going to the supermarket I washed some clothes by hand which was strangely satisfying and finally had a shave which was painfull and time consuming. Though it hasn't been as hot today as on previous days the drenched clothes were soon dry.

In the afternoon I wandered into the city to get some food. It was a much more pleasant walk being about 10 degrees cooler than normal. I went to see a local stall holder. He sells sweet pumkin wrapped in a sort of fritter as well as this strange paste that goes with hummus. As soon as he saw me he gave me his chair and his coffee then wandered off to get me a piece of fruit. We talked haltingly about his family and also about Hamas who he describes as terrorists and not welcome in Palestine. His attitude seemed to mirror a gentleman I met yesterday who corrected one of us when he said the pictures of martyr's were representation of murders not martyr's. From my basic understanding of Palestinian politics it is quite clear that most residents of the West Bank support Fatah and the President Abbas. So not only are most Palestinians not terrorists they don't support the actions of terrorist groups either. Perhaps the reason the situation in different in Gaza is because of how harsh the conditions are there. People here are restricted in terms of their movement but food is plentiful and water and electricity are available. Gaza is under seige and the population is being punished collectively.

I also learned today, from a report on the BBC news page written by a parliamentary select committee, that the term 'occupation' has a very precise legal definition. As an occupying force the Israeli's are required to administer the territories but are expressly forbidden to build settlements. Gaza is also classed as occupied though there are no IDF soldiers there because the Israeli's still control the borders and airspace.

It is hard to make a firm judgement on these things and to discover the 'truth' if there is a truth to be discovered. Someone allows the pictures of martyr's to be posted (often they are on advertisement billboards with pictures of food stuffs on the reverse) so they must be supported. I have heard the martyr's being denounced but also seen pictures of them as wallpaper backgrounds on young people's phones. One thing is very clear and that is how naive I am about ancient history. I know nothing compared to the people here. Perhaps that is why I would like to see the conflict solved in my lifetime whereas most Palestinians seem to say maybe in the next hundred years. This is also very much down to your perspective of life and more importantly the next one.