The bullets are still in the two bodies - apparently 0.22-caliber ones from a Ruger sniper rifle, which is forbidden to use for the dispersal of demonstrations. One teenager is in critical condition, with a bullet in his skull; the other is somewhat better off, with two bullets in his abdomen and his leg. One celebrated his 16th birthday this week, is anesthetized and on artificial respiration; the other is only 13 but his condition is better.

Both boys were shot last week, on Monday, in the violent protest demonstrations in Bethlehem on the day of the funeral of Arafat Jaradat, the Palestinian detainee who died in prison in unclear circumstances. The youngsters were shot by Israel Defense Forces soldiers, near the wall around Rachel's Tomb, a few hours apart and not many meters away from each other.

Oudai Ramadan might remain paralyzed and disabled for the rest of his life, or he may die. Mohammed Kurdi will have two more operations and will recover. Both of them are children of an intifada that has not yet been born.

Readers of Psalms and also Palestinians crowd into the tiny waiting room near the intensive care department at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem. "A song of Ascents. I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: From whence shall my help come? My help cometh from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth," murmurs the relative of a Jewish patient. Next to him sits Fathi Ramadan, a retired cook at the psychiatric hospital in Bethlehem, grandfather of Oudai, who is lying there and fighting for his life.

Amir, Oudai's 14-year-old brother, is wearing his wounded brother's metal chain and silver ring for good luck. The two brothers were raised by their grandmother and grandfather, after their parents separated and their mother moved to live with her new husband in Israel. For more than a week now they have not left their loved one's bedside; the mother, the grandmother, the grandfather and the brother sleep on the hospital floor and hope for the best.

But for Oudai, the best will not happen. He studies hairdressing at the vocational school in the al-Aida refugee camp. On Monday, February 25, he planned to go with his brother after school to the beauty salon where he is apprenticing. The demonstrations that day, the day of Jaradat's funeral, were especially fierce and the two brothers joined them.

A great miracle

They stood with other young people at the northern edge of their city, the place where it ends or is blocked opposite the separation wall, at the foot of the pillbox - the fortified concrete watchtower that was aflame that day from Molotov cocktails and fireworks thrown at it. The soldiers fired tear gas canisters, and at one stage one of them fired a live bullet, at Oudai's head. A silencer covered the noise, according to witnesses.

Amir was fleeing from the gas as his brother fell. The soldiers took Oudai into the fortified building and, according to testimonies, only called a Palestinian ambulance after about half an hour. It rushed him to Al-Hussein Hospital in nearby Beit Jala.

Later that evening, Oudai was taken to Hadassah University Hospital. Several more casualties of last week's incidents - from the villages of Khusra, Aboud, Qalandiyah and Bethlehem - are now hospitalized at Hadassah.

For a moment, I snuck into the room where Oudai is lying: a gangly adolescent with tubes stuck in his body, with his mother and grandmother sobbing ceaselessly at his bedside. His grandfather says that a few days before he was still occasionally responding to his surroundings, but not any more. His fever went up this week and his life is in danger. The grandfather came here on the night the boy was shot and has not been home since. "We can't leave him for a moment," the elderly man says, "I am not prepared to go home." They marked his birthday on Sunday.

Barely an hour's drive from there, Mohammed Kurdi lies in the surgical department at Al-Hussein Hospital, on a shabby bed covered with a threadbare synthetic blanket. His father, Khaled, is at his side. The boy's abdomen and legs are bandaged. One of the two bullets penetrated his stomach and went straight through, lodging in his spine but without causing irreversible damage. In about two weeks he will have surgery to remove the two shells. The father, a car-washer, understands that his son has experienced a great miracle.

An eighth-grader, Mohammed went to school as usual in the Al-Aida refugee camp last Monday. Afterward, he took his skates and went for a spin around the camp. Near the camp's Gate of Return, a number of teens had gathered and were throwing stones at the wall and the watchtower. We were there less than a month ago, to document the killing of another boy here, 15-year-old Salah Amarin.

Suha Zeid, a field researcher for B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, filmed the last minutes before Mohammed was wounded, from the roof of one of the street's buildings. The video does not show particularly tempestuous activity on the street: a small gathering of less than 20 adolescents sporadically throw stones at the wall from a distance of more than 150 meters.

Mohammed, in a striped shirt, is seen among them. That was at about 2:15 P.M. Zeid had turned off the camera and did not film the moment Mohammed was hit, but only the minutes immediately afterward. The wounded Mohammed is seen being carried by his friends. A foreign cameraman filmed a soldier aiming his rifle from a window in the watchtower. This was apparently the sniper who shot Mohammed.

From his bed, Mohammed recounts the event in his childish voice: First, one bullet hit his leg and then, as he bent over in pain, the second bullet hit his stomach. The soldier who fired did so from a distance of 150 meters, from the watchtower. These were live bullets. It is not clear why they were fired.

According to the video, and according to logic, it is impossible to believe the soldiers' lives were in any danger. Mohammed says he saw the soldier who shot him standing at the window of the watchtower. Now he says with a wan smile that he will never go near there again. His father reminds us that the children of this small and crowded refugee camp have nowhere to go in their spare time.

The IDF Spokesman responded thusly: "Lately, there have been violent, illegal and dangerous disturbances in the area of Rachel's Tomb. During these disturbances, which are taking place in difference sectors around the tomb compound, those taking part throw stones and hurl improvised grenades and Molotov cocktails in a manner that endangers the worshipers in the tomb compound and the security forces.

"Frequently they also try to torch army positions near the tomb compound and to damage the windows of the structures in the compound. Investigations are being conducted about the events in question, and their findings will be conveyed to the office of the military advocate general for examination."