A message of struggle is wiped from the walls of Gaza

Intimidating graffiti is by no means a monopoly of the Palestinians. In Jerusalem early this year, a group of Israeli volunteers disturbed by the frequent "Death to the Arabs" and "Expel the Arabs" slogans on walls took it upon themselves to paint them over after the municipality left them intact.

In Gaza, the symbolic effort to herald a new era is evoking, like the cease-fire itself, emotions ranging from guarded hope to unrelenting skepticism.

On the street, the transformation is not to everyone's liking.

"It all looks very strange without the writing," said a student at the entrance to the Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold, where the city wiped out slogans but left some paintings of slain leaders and fighters intact.

"We will continue our uprising," "Sharon should be put on trial for war crimes," and "Jerusalem is the flower in our eyes," were among the messages that used to be there. A few streets away, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of Fatah, had also lost its defiant vow: "We will never kneel. We die standing up." It had been whitewashed.

Even a huge "The commander Abu Amar [Mr. Arafat] lives" is now only barely visible through the fresh paint on the wall of a nearby police station.

The painting "is what the Americans, Europeans, and Israelis want, not what we want," says the student, who asked not to be identified. "In our situation of resistance we should write. The wall is a wall of resistance, it increases the strength of the people."

A friend disagrees, saying; "This is the right time to remove it. The intifada is about to end, so it should go."

In the Fatah offices, Helles proudly recalls his graffiti-writing career, now coming to a close - perhaps. An environmental science graduate who wore an off-white dress shirt, and a portable phone strapped to his belt, he seems an unlikely street scrawler. But he explains that the practice is not just for young teens.

"When sometimes we feel a need to express ourselves we go out at night and do it as a group," he says. He adds that the Fatah youth movement allocates a small budget for wall writing. "It's not so different from writing for a newspaper," says Helles. "But it has the advantage of getting the message across very cheaply. For a little money you can get a bottle of colors and a sprayer."

Helles says of the cease-fire. "If it does not give us our rights and if the conflict continues, than our drawing will continue." The partly painted walls of Gaza would "be a good place to start writing again. They are white and clean."

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