'If you see a tank, just leave the car and run for it'

Francois broke the curfew the other day. He didn't mean to, his car broke down just as the brief lull the Israelis allow for the Palestinians to stock up on food came to an end. We had to push it through the narrow alleys of Bethlehem, keeping a lookout for Israeli soldiers. The sweat that began to run down Francois' face was not just from the heat and exertion. His three small boys were in the back of the car.

"If you see a tank, just leave the car and run for it" someone hissed, giving us a quick helpful shove and rushing for cover. Trouble often flares when the curfew falls. Sometimes, children throw stones at the soldiers. Sometimes the soldiers open fire. Two children were killed last month when an Israeli tank fired a shell into a crowd as curfew fell.

Francois, a Palestinian Christian, allowed us into his home in Bethlehem this week to experience the curfew. When the news of this week's attacks by Palestinian militants broke, he was devastated. Before yesterday's Israeli government announcement, he already knew the attacks meant plans to ease the curfew would be dropped.

Like 700,000 Palestinians, Francois is cooped up inside his tiny four-room house with his three sons and his wife, Marie, 24 hours a day. It is a traditional Bethlehem house – at least there is a tiny open-air courtyard for the children to play in, and the thick walls keep out the worst of the heat. Thousands are not so fortunate.

The children cannot go to school, or go out to play. Francois used to work as a tour guide but there have been almost no tourists for two years. The only money arrives from Marie's relatives in Jordan.

On Tuesday, the curfew is lifted from 9am to 2pm. Francois has to get the children out of the house. He has to do enough shopping to last until the next break, which may not be for four days. Marie is sick, and cannot help.

He drops his youngest son, Louis, who is three, at a nursery run by local nuns. The other two boys, Patrick and Michel, he takes with him. He runs the local boy scout movement, and has to call at the centre. Three scouts are practising the bagpipes – a legacy of British rule – and making a fearful caterwauling.

The scouts are supposed to go on a trip to Italy in the autumn and Francois is racing through the paperwork, scrawling details from a pile of passports – though he knows the trip may be impossible if the curfew lasts that long.

One hour to go and he sets off to buy food. The streets of Bethlehem are bursting : everybody is out shopping. There are traffic jams and drivers are hooting angrily, furious at wasting their precious minutes. Twenty minutes. Francois, a Catholic, wanted to light a candle for his sick wife, but he knows there isn't time now. Ten minutes. People are hurrying, running between the shops and their cars. Five minutes. The car won't start.

We get back to the house half an hour late, after a nerve-wracking time pushing the car through the streets. Then the long day inside starts. Every now and then there is a deafening rumble as Israeli personnel carriers rumble past the house on patrol. The children used to be so scared they couldn't sleep at night, Francois says. But now they rush to spot tanks going past.

Marie is depressed. "If I could, I would leave" she says. "There is no life for the children here. I only want a life for my children". On the television, we hear that a Jewish settler bus has been ambushed. It is not only the thought that the curfew will not be eased that upsets Francois. "I am against all killing of civilians" he says.

In the evening, the neighbours call. They cannot go out on the streets, so middle-aged men and women climb over the wall like furtive schoolboys. Anything for company.

George is angry. He is an electrical engineer but cannot get to his job in Jerusalem because of the restrictions. "They are putting us under this curfew to break our spirit" he says angrily, "so we will accept whatever settlement they impose on us." Anthony works as a lay cleric at the Armenian church. He breaks the curfew every day to work. "I put on my habit and trust in God," he says.

Night falls and neighbours climb back over the wall. There is a sound like someone crying out, but it is impossible to go and see what it is. Through the night, the troops rumble past.

At 6am, Francois breaks the curfew again to get bread. The church gives it out free but it is a risky dash up the street. At 9am, we leave Francois and family. It is an eerie drive through the deserted streets.

Names have been changed to protect identities.