It could be anywhere. Five small children walking home from class, munching thoughtfully on sweets they are sharing. Neatly dressed, like new pins gleaming in the sunlight, they are a credit to the parents who washed and clothed them earlier in the day.

But this is not anywhere: these are Palestinian children on the West Bank, their innocence and even their lives threatened by the conflict that rages around them.

A mile in either direction, their older brothers have erected makeshift and rather pathetic barricades behind which they throw stones at young Israeli soldiers who reply with rubbercoated metal bullets. Death or serious injury are often the result.

What does the future hold in store for these small children? The conflict is bad at the moment but could get worse: this area has known all-out war before. Even if the present wave of violence eventually subsides, the two sides are so far apart that further outbreaks are a virtual certainty.

Many families already know death or disability, and normality seems a distant dream. But as they chew contentedly on their sweets, they are clearly not thinking about all this: truly the world is more full of weeping than a child can understand.

By comparison with the West Bank, and even allowing for the Northern conflict, Ireland is almost Shangri-La. It is mildly incongruous therefore to see the Tricolour waving in the light afternoon breeze outside Ireland's representative office in the West Bank town of Al-Bireh.

The multi-storey building housing the office is in an exposed position, although some would argue that the whole West Bank comes into this category. Hungary has a representative office on the same floor and some of their windows were shot out: the incident is blamed on militants from the Jewish settlement of Pzagot, high on a nearby hill.

If Palestine were a recognised sovereign state there would doubtless be an Irish embassy. Instead there is the Representative Office of Ireland to the Palestinian Authority, probably best described as a mission, set up after a meeting between the Taoiseach and Yasser Arafat in January 1999.

It is headed by an Irish diplomat, Isolde Moylan, from Bray, Co Wicklow, who was until February our charge d'affaires in Tanzania. Back in Ireland Ms Moylan would be going to work on the DART, here she travels 12 miles by jeep from her residence in the Mount of Olives district of Jerusalem.

Instead of Dun Laoghaire harbour and Seapoint, she passes through Israeli checkpoints and soldiers wave her past while keeping a wary eye on nearby youths with catapults and slingshots.

"There's no shortage of atmosphere here," Ms Moylan observes, as we approach the checkpoint at the Kalandia refugee camp, on the way to Al-Bireh. We normally associate camps with tents, but the refugees have been here so long that they have built stone houses and a town of sorts has grown up.

It is only 10.30 in the morning, but already the young boys are testing their stone-throwing skills in the presence of a television crew. More than 120 youths have been killed and 4,000 wounded in clashes with soldiers over the past month. Later in the day at this checkpoint, a Palestinian youth was shot in the stomach.

There are different theories to explain the latest Palestinian Intifada (uprising). A conspiracy orchestrated by Arafat is an explanation popular with Israelis; sympathisers of the Palestinians say it is a spontaneous revolt against oppression and deprivation of civil rights.

Probably the truth is somewhere in between. There appears to be some advance planning at local level, but Arafat looks more like a man trying to ride a tiger which he cannot tame.

THE Irish office is about a mile from the Ramallah police station where two Israeli soldiers, Vadim Norzech (33) and Yosef Avrahami (38), were kicked and beaten to death by a Palestinian mob.

Reservists who got lost in their Mazda or undercover commandos on a mission; there are opposing versions of what the hapless pair were up to. But there is no dispute that they received a horrible death which shocked all shades of Israeli opinion and stunned liberals into silence.

Ms Moylan was at her office and received a tip-off to leave, get out fast and don't even wait to switch off your computer. There are incoming and outgoing lanes on the road between Ramallah and Jerusalem, but all of them were occupied by outgoing traffic fleeing the terrible retribution.

Cars and trucks even mounted the footpath to get away, and the only people driving in the opposite direction were the media, including a courageous RTE crew.

Israel's helicopter gunships made short work of the police station and the Cobras took in a number of other targets as well. Israel has been sending what it calls a strong message to Palestinian militants reminiscent of the American War of Independence slogan, "Don't tread on me."

Stones and sniper fire have been greeted with bullets, tank shells and missiles from helicopters. But the desperation of the Palestinian youth is such that they ignore the warning and keep coming back for more. The theory that "repression breeds violence" has been vindicated.

Whether or not he is calling the shots, as it were, Arafat's stature has certainly been increased since the so-called days of rage began. But the militant youth are also said to admire the military prowess of the fundamentalist Hizbullah, who they believe drove the Israelis out of Lebanon.

That defeat and the undercurrents of fundamentalism in the latest Intifada may help to explain why Israel appears to be so nervous and has reacted in such a ruthless fashion.

The outside world may look aghast at the sight of children being shot down for throwing stones, but there has not been a cheep of criticism of the security forces from inside Israel itself.

Journalists from abroad ask why water-cannon or tear gas cannot be used instead of the present deadly methods, but their pleas are met with answers like: Stones can kill too; this is not a Saturday demonstration in Trafalgar Square, this is war; it's a fundamentalist conspiracy; and Arafat is trying to turn this place into another Kosovo to provoke foreign intervention.

It could go on for another year, by which time the death-toll does not bear thinking about. The City Inn hotel in northern Ramallah is a popular staging-post for riots, since it is close to the entrance of a large Israeli army base. Since the Oslo peace accords, wealthy expatriates from the Palestinian diaspora have been pouring money into Ramallah which is, in effect, the capital of the West Bank.

New buildings sprout everywhere, and in better times the City Inn would be crowded with visitors. Not today: a watchful Israeli squaddie stands in the doorway, weapon at the ready. Outside, the street is a dismal sight with stones everywhere. The youngsters have assembled a barricade from burnt-out cars and big green garbage containers.

The day's deadly theatre has yet to begin but, perhaps as practice, a stone hits our jeep. In addition to the army base, the Jewish settlement of Beit El on a hilltop in the heart of their semiautonomous territories is considered a further provocation by the Palestinians.

The peace process seems to be dying on its feet. The Israelis are closing ranks and hoping their tough stance will quell the uprising. The Palestinians want other mediators to become centrally involved along with the US which is traditionally close to Israel.

The EU and the UN are being invoked: two bodies in which Ireland has a role. Our Woman in Ramallah will have her hands full for some time to come.