Kristen Ess - The streets of Ramallah are teeming with thousands of people beginning early Saturday afternoon. The leftists are shouting for Palestine, for justice. Dr. Mustafa Barghouthti has a television camera shoved in his face. He is talking about Israeli war crimes.

“The West Bank is with you,” a shout carries through the phone to friends in Gaza.

All parties, all people, swarm not only the central West Bank city, but those throughout. The demonstrations are fierce and the streets are literally on fire. Forty people are reported injured in East Jerusalem's Shu'afat while Israeli forces arrest young people "on suspicion" of participating in the Issawiya and Mount Scopus demonstrations. PNN's Jenin correspondent reports on protests in the northern West Bank's Jenin that call for national unity.

Tires and garbage cans are buring along the streets of East Jerusalem, Ramallah and southeastern Bethlehem. Young people in Ramallah are hurling stones at the checkpoint that hems in their city. The neighboring town of Qalandiya was hit hard by Israeli soldiers who opened fire on the youth and journalists on the scene.

Hundreds of condemnations are coming in, including from the United Nations, the Arab League and the European Union. The United States lends a single supportive voice to the Israeli massacre, but asks that "civilian casualties" be avoided.

Watching live coverage, bodies are blown apart, children’s head are split, there is blood everywhere and the cameras are shaking from the explosions

Demonstrations erupted the moment the news reached the West Bank that over 150 Palestinians had been killed in a matter of moments in southern Gaza, in northern Gaza, in Sheikh Zayed, in the city, in the Strip. The demonstrations escalated throughout the day as did the death toll. The bastion of nonviolent resistance against the Wall, western Ramallah's Nal'in, was also hit by Israeli forces during a demonstration.

The initial reply to West Bank solidarity from the Gaza end of the phone was angry. “Really? Is the West Bank really with us? Did you finally wake up?” Live footage on Al Jazeera shows a dad carrying a little girl wrapped in a red and white kaffiya. The ground is grey with wreckage.

People are running in the streets of Gaza to help the dead and injured. In the West Bank no one interviewed knows what to do. People say, "It's horrible," "It's a war crime," they call on the "international community" to do something.

Later in the evening a small group, about 30 women, walked alone through Manara Circle representing Hamas. They chanted for national unity and against the massacre. A Palestinian Authority security jeep rolled alongside them, with two members of the police walking in the front. There were no TV crews. People stopped and stared as the women called out that Hamas was there and was condemning the Israeli attacks. The PA had expressed earlier concern that problems would break out in the West Bank between members of Fateh and Hamas.

In Ramallah's Qalandiya and Balua Israeli soldiers opened fire and shot gas canisters. Hundreds of youth began throwing stones as the demonstration was pushed back. On the streets, tires have been set ablaze. Dozens of people are suffering from inhallation from the canisters of noxious gas, while less than a dozen were hit and have more severe injuries.

Businesses in the city shut their doors earlier today in a general strike. The same happened in Nablus where a resident and journalist reports full closures and demonstrations. The store fronts in East Jerusalem shut within moments of the news arriving, with just a shop with TVs open enough for people to gather on the sidewalk and watch the initial live footage. 

Beginning tomorrow the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem will observe three days of mourning for the martyrs and a general strike in protest of the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip which Olmert says are "just beginning."