[Illustration: Khalil Yaziji found two bodies outside his shop, al-Jazeera.]

So what is today’s top story of violence in the Middle East? Take your pick: the Lebanese army vs. Fatah al-Islam in the camps of Tripoli, a Taliban-ignited bomb exploding in a market and killing civilians in Afghanistan, an assassination attempt on the mayor of Mogadishu, six U.S. soldiers and an interpretor killed in Diwaniya in southern Iraq, more deaths in Gaza. Reading the news (I almost made the anachronistic slip of “picking up” a newspaper) today is a time warp back to the revelationary isle John of Patmos and his prophetic vials of plagues. I am not referring to an incendiary end of the world scenario spun by the late Jerry Falwell (may he rest in Baptist solitude), but the continuing hell on earth. If you think this is about religion (or democracy), think again. Remove the politics (and American involvement or influence) from each of the stories above and the religion is reduced to a drizzle.

So here is my pick of the day, one from the little guy. Al-Jazeera, which has the resources and access that Western journalists can only dream about, published a piece by reporter Laila Haddad, who interviewed a variety of ordinary Palestinians living through the nightmare of Gaza these days. It is worthwhile looking at the violence from the ground-up, a welcome break from the bird’s-dropping view usually spun in the media. Here is what Khalil Yaziji, 26 years old, a shopkeeper and banker thinks of his present and future:

I closed when I found two bodies that had been executed by Fatah forces disposed of on the sidewalk outside my supermarket. There was blood everywhere.

Honestly, the situation is miserable and depressing.

We feel we are working for nothing. A life where you are working just to be able to feed yourself is no life at all.

I honestly feel that it’s possible that at any moment, someone can come in and shoot me.

That’s how dire the situation is.

I mean I’m newly married and I haven’t even been able to take my wife out yet anywhere. The situation is too dangerous, too unpredictable.

We opened the shop today but the situation is still tense and there is still an overall fear that things can go horribly wrong at any moment.

But people need to buy goods and my produce will go bad if I just remain closed forever.

Still, customers will come in and quickly get what they want, and leave. Many people have stocked up on goods in days past. On Wednesday we couldn’t even leave the house. There was a real fear that anyone could abduct you or execute you on the spot for your appearances, for example if you had a beard.

There is simply no security at all. They could come in at any moment. They could even steal my money.

Our only way out is for Israel to keep bombing us until we die. At least that way it’s more honourable.

I mean we are talking about wanton crimes… executions that were taking place. The man whose body we found outside was forced to bow down to the Fatah gunmen or be killed.

The situation provided common criminals with a chance to do what they want. They took advantage of the situation to take out their personal grievances and vendettas. It wasn’t even a matter of Hamas vs Fatah any more.

The big leaders on either side are responsible. All of these gunmen answer to someone, don’t they?

But they didn’t want to come out and see how we’re dying on the streets.

What brought this all to fruition was the global and Israeli sieges on Gaza, and the resulting unemployment and lack of wages.

That, in addition to the US’s military and financial support of Fatah militias – this has an enormous role.

We want them to lift the siege. We want them to begin speaking with our government, Hamas included.

And locally speaking, we need a single leader in charge of security.

Daniel Martin Varisco