Leena and I have decided to return to Jerusalem tomorrow, since we can't wait until next Sunday when the Over-60s Club will re-open. We decide to visit a Women's Club on Jaffa Street. We'd thought it would be a Greek Orthodox club but it turns out to be called Namat, and run by the Histadrut. Its members here are all Palestinian, like the Over-60s club, and its director is Najwa, Umm Nakhleh's daughter, the one who was born in Ramallah the year after the Nakbeh. Every week on Tuesday morning there's a seminar. Najwa chooses the subjects and speakers, presumably provided by the Histadrut. She says that astrology is very popular now. The club also gives professional training courses, and has a day-care centre for working mothers.

No speaker is scheduled today because of the upcoming celebration of Israeli independence day. Another reminder of the regime they live under is a long, ear-shattering siren blast in memory of Jewish dead in World War 2. Najwa introduces Leena and me to the women who have come for the seminar. I say a few words about our work, the purposes of our visit, and allude to the difficulties for Palestinians in different parts of the diaspora to communicate, or know each other. Blank faces. This talk of a Palestinian diaspora is unfamiliar. Najwa has to 'translate'. She says that we are interested in knowing about people's problems and the current situation. A moment's silence, and then women around the table begin to speak out. I take the phone numbers of several speakers. One is an Armenian who tells us that the annual Armenian memorial day will take place next Saturday (April 24) at the St George Cathedral in Jerusalem Old City. Armenians will attend from all over Israel.

Signs of the sectarianism that has newly overtaken Israeli Palestinians are manifest at this meeting. The first woman to speak says that the past was better than today because people loved each other. She grew up in a mixed neighbourhood in Sidon, Haret al-Yuhud, where there were Christians, Muslims, Jews and Armenians. In those days people of different sects shared house, kitchen, toilet without any difficulty. Here in Israel, today, no one loves anyone. The good/bad contrast involves both time and place.

Leena has brought a copy of her photo book For Palestine; it shows refugee camps in Lebanon between 1982 and 1983 -- scenes of the war, the evacuation of the PLO, and the aftermath of the massacre. Najwa suggests she should pass it round so that the audience can see it. Here again signs of the 'sectarian disease'. The photograph that arouses most interest, and even anger, is one taken of a crucifixion in a church near Sidon, showing the figure of Christ with a missing arm and leg 12. People want to know who perpetrated this outrage? Leena doesn't know for sure but assumes that it was the Israelis. Who else? Photos of the camps after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 don't seem to attract the same level of interest. No one asks about the situation of Palestinians in Lebanon. Is this because, in a locale controlled by the Histadrut, evidence of Palestinian sectarianism is a permissable topic?

After leaving the club, we pass by Fahkry Geday's pharmacy. We're hoping that one of the Club directors will pass by to take us to meet an old lady in Ajami, Umm Abdallah, recommended because she stayed on in Jaffa throughout the expulsions. We also want to talk to Mr Geday, who has published several articles on Jaffa before the Nakbeh. He was studying pharmacy in Lebanon during the Nakbeh, only managed to return to Jaffa in 1950, the last person to be allowed in under the Rhodes Armistice agreement on repatriation. We also both need medication. The uncertainties and stress of our 'programme' is taking its toll: my back is paining; Leena's lips are sore, and she forgot the right cream in the hurry of packing. However big the Medi-Kit one takes on a journey, the one essential item is never there. Israeli pharmacies require a doctor's prescription for even simple medications like Indocid. It will be easier to obtain such things in the West Bank.

Diana passes by to take us to Umm Abdallah but she isn't at home. Such delays are much easier to bear when doing research from home, with no accommodation booking or travel plans to worry about. I remember that it took me nearly two years to record eighteen life stories with women from Shatila camp. The time pressure with this project is really uncomfortable.

We go and say goodbye to Nuri Okbeh in his kebab restaurant on the esplanade between Jaffa and Tel-Aviv. I give up hope of recording with him, though he's someone who should be

recorded because of his rich experience of organizing in the Nagab 13. He is under extra strain now because of his court case, the imminent demolition of his home, and the job of running his restaurant almost single-handed. For once, tonight, there are a lot of customers. I give him a xerox of Penny Maddrell's book on the bedouin of the Negev in which he is quoted.

The next day Andre comes to take us to the bus station. We had hoped to see inside the old Lutheran church opposite the guest-house where we are staying, Beit Immanuel, but it is always locked. The cross has been removed from the spire, and people say that there is a menorah on the altar. Beit Immanuel is run by Christian Zionists.

The journey to Jerusalem (by bus) and then on to Beit Jalaa doesn't take long. We stop in Jerusalem just long enough for Leena to pick up a batch of photos, and reach Beit Jalaa by early afternoon. Leena has invited me to spend my last few days in her small flat in the Finnish Institute. We start imagining our 'book', what kinds of photos we need, how text and photos should be related. We agree that faces should be treated 'classically' but that in other ways the layout should be 'post-modern'. We start to think of objects that represent Israeli transformation of Palestine as lived-in environment - wire fences, destroyed villages, settlers with Uzzis, certain types of housing, settlements on hilltops like Crusader castles, notices forbidding entry, Jerusalem ID cards; the list is endless.

The last few days are taken up with meeting Jerusalem people - Anna Cipicchia for information about bedouin and the (mainly Italian) NGOs that work with them; Jamal Taleb of the Land Research Office. Leena photos Umm Islam in the Summood camp. We visit Nadwa Sarandar 14 and record with her. We go to a protest meeting at Orient House - Israeli Prime Minister Natanyahu has ordered the closure of three of its offices -- and meet Feisal Hourani and Uri Avnery. We go to the Armenian memorial day service in the Old City. We keep trying to reach Umm Salah al-Yassini to photograph her but her number never answers. Perhaps it has changed. Each time I return to 'Palestine'/'Israel' I need to revise my phone list.

I take Leena to meet 'Suhayla' in Bir Ona, which is close to Beit Jalaa, hoping that this time she will allow Leena to take her photograph. But she refuses again: Voice okay, picture No. 'Suhayla' explains that her husband fears that her photo would appear in a magazine, and that the neighbours would talk. She says, "I don't do anything without asking him first. He's crazy". Leena takes a photo of the grandchildren in which, her face banned, 'Suhayla''s feet will appear.

Our last night in Beit Jalaa is made horribly memorable by the destruction of an old stone house in front of the Finnish Institute. The din of demolition begins around midnight and continues for two hours. By this time most of the old house is lying in fragments, with only an inner wall and an arch left standing. Demolition continues the next morning. Around 11 o'clock two women appear and scream curses at an invisible enemy - probably they are part-owners of the demolished house, now faced with the fait accompli of its loss. Their screaming stops suddenly when two PNA police arrive, as if to legitimize the bulldozer's aggression. The noise gives us both headaches, and the sight of the ruined house acts as a gloomy visual seal on our Easter visit.

Even our final departure is out-of-the-ordinary. Leena goes to Jerusalem where she will spend a last night at the oldest hotel in the Old City, the Petra. Getting photos out of Israel is always a nerve-wracking business. This pause will give Leena a chance to get this done. As we pack, I don't envy her her gear - three cameras, hundreds of prints and packs of unused film.

As for me, I asked a friend, Muhammad Jaradat, to drive me from Beit Jalaa to the Bridge. I'd done this thinking it would be a simple drive, at most 40 minutes. To my great embarrassment I discover that the direct route has been closed to West Bankers since 1993. Muhammad is forced to make an enormous detour on a road called Wadi al-Nar (because of its extreme heat in summer). At one point on Wadi al-Nar we almost reach Jerusalem, passing under the 'Jahileen camp'. Muhammad points out where Jerusalem municipal garbage cascades and oozes down the hillside. No better symbol could be found for the way Israel despoils those parts of the West Bank that it can't utilize.

Muhammad isn't allowed to drive to the Terminal on the Israeli side of the Bridge but drops me at the Abdel Hayy Shaheen bus terminal near Jericho. By night I'm in Amman.