Ambulances, which are parked near the crowd every day, rush the boys to a hospital in town. In the first month of this Palestinian rebellion, the Israeli solidiers, police and settlers wounded 7,000 Palestinians. During the entire seven years of the first intifadah that ended in 1993, the total number of Palestinian wounded was 18,000. At the present rate of injury, the Israelis could wound 84,000 people in a year - or an astounding 588,000 if this intifadah lasts as long as the first. Lest this battle seem about body counts and kill ratios, neither side is killing and maiming the other with the objective of annihilation.
Violence is a way of sending messages to the other side.
The Palestinians are saying they want independence within the pre-1967 borders of the West Bank and Gaza, without settlements and soldiers robbing their independence of meaning. The Israelis are clearly stating, with every round they fire into a crowd, that they cannot have it. At this stage, the deus should fly in on his machina and force the two sides to accept peace. However, the world's deus lives in Washington and is not imposing full decolonization of the occupied territories. Anything else seems unlikely to stop the blood draining from Palestinian and, in smaller numbers, Israeli veins.