Jerusalem braced for attacks

By James Shaw
BBC, Jerusalem

Hard-faced men with metal detectors stand at the entrances to shops and cafes in the centre of west Jerusalem.

Jerusalem looks like a besieged city

Scores of soldiers with automatic weapons patrol the pavements; security guards man the buses.

As the people in the city speculate anxiously about what might happen next after the killing of the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the authorities are not taking any chances.

It seems that that the cafes are a little emptier than normal on a weekday afternoon, but there are still street performers and musicians attracting small crowds on Ben Yehuda street in a warm spring sunshine.

'Walking dead'

Israel's popular daily Yediot Ahronot carries an opinion poll suggesting most people approve of the assassination of a man believed to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians.

Jerusalem's buses are now virtually empty

But an opinion column warns it is not a question of whether Hamas will strike back - only where and when.

The writer says there are now walking dead on the streets of the city - they are destined to die in a terrorist attack sometime soon and yet no-one asked their permission for the actions of the Israeli Defence Force.

Jennifer Flam - a young student originally from the United States - is waiting to meet a friend near a bus stop on Gaza Street.

No sympathy

But she doesn't use buses anymore, she says, since narrowly avoiding two bombings in the past.

At one time, she says, she took part in dialogue group with Palestinians.

Now the feeling that her life and the lives of her friends are threatened in a regular and random way makes it hard for her to feel sympathy with them.

When you spend hours in a hospital with a friend who was on a bus that was blown up it changes your opinion Jennifer Flam, Israeli student Gaza eyes brewing storm

Once, she says, she would have opposed the assassinations by the Israeli army; now she is not so sure.

Jennifer - like so many Israelis - has direct and bitter experience of terrorism.

"When you spend hours in a hospital with a friend who was on a bus that was blown up," she says, "it changes your opinion."

Other citizens of Jerusalem are just as desperate for peace and just as unsure how to achieve it.

One man says it can only happen when all the terrorists in the world have been wiped out. Another believes there has been a failure to tackle the causes of terrorism.

The US-sponsored "roadmap" to achieve a settlement of the conflict failed last summer.

Perhaps worse than that, there seems to be no roadmap in the minds of Israelis and Palestinians to find a way to end more than half a century of bloodshed.