At the Palestinian Legislative Council, photographs take the place of parliament members who were arrested by the IDF following the Gaza invasion. Eight cabinet members and over twenty lawmakers have been detained indefinitely. (Mushir Abdelrahman, Maan Images)

In the past week, two different episodes occurred in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that showed an evolution in Palestinian society. The first episode occurred in Gaza on June 25 near the Kerem Abu Salem-Shalom area. There, a group of young, angry and frustrated Palestinians, members of the Popular Resistance Committees, dug a tunnel to reach an Israeli military base and engaged in a battle in which they lost two of their own, killed two Israeli soldiers and captured 20-year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit as a prisoner of war.

The second episode occurred in the Eastern Cemetery in Nablus on July 1. There, a group of young, angry and frustrated Palestinians, this time affiliated with Fatah, withstood a 20-hour Israeli military operation without rest, facing down tear gas, bullets, missiles and psychological warfare. Walid Shahruri, 16, fought on while wounded and did not answer even his mother's appeal for him to surrender. Nablus, with its more than 200,000 citizens, held a day of mourning in honor of their heroism.

These episodes could prove to be a new direction in the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation: They were not coordinated, nor ordered from higher up; they were not related and they were carried out by young people, not for the agenda of some leadership, but in the name of national aspirations, as acts of fulfillment and pride, in order to defy the culture of the occupation.

The young constitute more than 50 percent of the Palestinian population. The youths who fought in the incidents cited above knew they would not undo the Israeli occupation. They wanted to send a message by humiliating the Israeli military and thereby setting an example for others to follow in what might become a "third intifada," in the hope that this time it will not be hijacked by "big brothers," whether inside or outside.

The Israeli Army's nose was bloodied and the inflated ego of this "undefeated army" was deflated by inexperienced youths born and raised under its boots. That army is bent on revenge and neither Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz nor Prime Minister Ehud Olmert can tame the beast. Hence the scenes we are witnessing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

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In the Palestinian house, meanwhile, the political earthquake resulting from the victory of Hamas in January's parliamentary elections showed the people's desire for change and reform. The success of Hamas also contributed to the exposure of a divided Fatah movement and a corrupt regime. It thus helped the emergence of a new generation in the secular Fatah movement who are not beholden to the "old guard." In addition, the rise of Hamas brought Islamists closer to the gray area of governing and compelled them to "normalize" with secularists to develop a joint agenda.

After the elections, Hamas and Fatah carried on as opponents at different levels, both inside and outside the Palestinian territories. This adversarial relationship reflected their differences in positions, interests and goals. In addition, Hamas had no experience in governing and Fatah could not accommodate itself to being an opposition party.

Israel, the European Union and the United States, meanwhile, forced three conditions on Hamas for it to be internationally accepted as the Palestinian government: to recognize Israel, to accept all previous agreements, and to renounce violence. The subsequent sanctions against the Palestinian Authority (PA) led to a severe closure, a freeze on the salaries of 160,000 Palestinian civil servants and an economic disaster in the making.

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