Perhaps the truce on Wednesday afternoon was a last-ditch attempt to quell the violence in Tahrir, thought some hopefuls, while most remained skeptical of the sudden ceasefire between policemen and protesters on the fourth day of violence that the side-streets off Tahrir square have experienced. The latter had suspected a trap, or at best a temporary lull after which the violence would resume afresh.

 

The skeptics were right; a few hours after police and riot control forces retreated from Mohamed Mahmoud square, they returned and clashes were renewed. A few tanks, dispatched by the army generals and celebrated by state television channels, had come in earlier between the infighting crowds. 

 

But as the violence resurfaced, the tanks remained neutral.  

 

One YouTube video that emerged an hour after the clashes, showed a crowd of unarmed protesters chanting “Silmiya, Silmiya” (Peaceful, Peaceful) as minutes later an eruption was heard. The familiar whistle of tear-gas canisters being fired through the air and exploding a few seconds upon hitting the ground could also be heard. A thick fog was quickly forming. The source of the canisters was unclear, as chaos unfurled and apparently the video-man was caught up in a stampede resulting in shaky footage that nevertheless acted as rough documentation of the outpouring of violence. 

 

Eyewitnesses from the square attested to the claim that the Ministry of Interior (MOI) men began their attack unprovoked -- despite a statement urging “self-restraint” by Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) chief Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawy. 

 

Amid the hubbub, the interim cabinet led by Essam Sharaf had tendered its resignation. On the third day of violence, Field Marshal Tantawy has given one of his rare video statements, announcing that the army has accepted Sharaf’s resignation, but that he and his government would remain incumbent until a new cabinet is appointed. The top army man, the de-facto ruler of the country, also promised that a new president would be chosen by June 2011 at most, and insisted that the generals never intended to hoard power.

 

In defiance of Tahrir, or perhaps in a tactical move to appease the crowds chanting breathlessly against him and his military council there, he said that his council was ready for a national referendum on whether or not the army should immediately cede to rule. 

 

Meanwhile, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, a CNN producer who was present in the field this evening, tweeted through his personal account that “once again, the backstreets are preparing for war.” He reported that many protesters said “they [MOI] hit us while praying” [evening prayers] and that rocks were now being used, yet again, as ammo against the advancing riot police forces, shielded under their heavy helmets and long arm shields.

 

The protesters held on to their cheap face masks, tearing up, as they maneuvered their way through the clouds of nauseating tear gas. 

 

As it stands, several thousands remain in Tahrir, as more people, supplies and aid are seeping in while medical teams are still stranded in field hospitals, working around the clock. A day earlier, a million-man march successfully brought in roughly 400,000 protesters to the square, creating one of the biggest demonstrations that the square has witnessed, perhaps since the stepping down of the former president on February 11.

 

Field hospitals were over-stocked with both medicine, and injuries. A doctor who has been volunteering in Omar Makram Mosque’s make-shift hospital for over 48 hours and who currently heads the shifts there said that the injured were being dropped in every minute or so. “A man just died here an hour ago, his body was transported across the square. We just had his funeral,” she told Egypt Today on Tuesday. She was over-worked, having spent two nights in a row in Tahrir without rest, but obviously still standing strong. 

 

Another volunteer, Noha Mounir, said that she counted over 120 injuries during the three hours she spent in another field hospital in the square. “It was horrific. People were bleeding and were just being thrown in front of me. I felt like throwing up. The tear gas coming from the side streets irritating my eyes and throat, and making it all the more difficult to work,” she added. 

 

The head doctor, who looks like she’s in her late 40s, said that injuries are diverse, “from rubber bullets, live ammunition, we get burns, people asphyxiated and others who keep vomiting as a result of tear gas.” Several younger doctors came to talk to her about supplies, but at some point, a shout escaped her; “I’m alone here, and I can’t deal with all these piles alone. I need help,” she said. 

 

Before this reporter left, she put out an arm to stop me, “You have to mention in your story that we’re receiving injuries from streets behind Omar Makram as well, not just from Mohamed Mahmoud street. But from all other side streets. It looks like there are unknown snipers all around the Tahrir area. Several people told me that. We still received bullet injuries late into the night even after clashes with police ceased,” she said. “I can’t explain it.” A few steps away from where she stood, long queues of citizens huddled around an ambulance that collected blood donations. 

 

Every few minutes a commotion erupted as an ambulance or a motorcycle carrying an unconscious man or woman driven by a volunteer rescue worker whizzed by; rescue teams donning yellow vests opened the way for them amid the crowds. 

 

The square was bustling with life, as death hovered. 

 

And on Wednesday evening, it was no different. 

 

On social networks, activists and protesters on the square pleaded with those outside to go and donate blood, bring in food and even more supplies, including bullet-proof goggles, since offenders seem to be targeting the eyes. 

 

It didn’t seem that those crowds would trickle out of the square soon -- unless perhaps they’re forced to. Even after Tantawy’s statement and the last-minute passage of the “treachery” law that forbid ex-regime members from running for parliamentary elections, scheduled to begin on 28 November, the anger was still flaring. 

 

On Tuesday evening attempts to gas the crowds out were unsuccessful. The central field hospital, set up smack in the middle of the square, has reported being targeted, but it still endured.  

 

In the square a young veiled mother with her one-year old daughter sat quietly on a side-walk, as a group of students passed chanting “Down with the Field Marshal.” “I’m tired of the military council, I want them to leave,” she said. “And that’s why I came to Tahrir despite the danger. It’s for my daughter. I want her to have a better life.” 

  

Her toddler, wide-eyed, seemed amazed at all the noise and color, as she fiddled with her tele-bear toy. She didn’t wear any protective gas mask, so this reporter gave her one. She took it probably believing it another strange-looking toy, as the mother smiled thanking me and quietly explaining to Egypt Today how she believes the military junta was now “tried and tested” 10 months on after the revolution, and that they should hand in the power to a “rescue government.”

 

She wasn’t a member of a party. She just came with her husband. “He’s on the other side of the square now,” she pointed to the other end, nearer where the clashes between protesters and police were taking place. Another march, now of a hundred long-bearded Salafi-looking men, passed in front of us chanting “civil, civil.” It was a change of rhetoric; a few month earlier, it seemed that Islamists and the SCAF were bosom friends.

  

The same could be said for other conservatives. On Wednesday, news circulated that Al-Azhar’s head had singled out the Interior Ministry in his calls for “self restraint” calling the protesters in Tahrir “our sons.” A day earlier, the Muslim Brotherhood issued a firm statement, which according to The Guardian’s translation of it accused the military rulers of “contradicting all human, religious, and patriotic values’ with ther callousness and warning that the revolution that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak earlier this year was able to rise again.” 

 

On State TV, a journalist calling in on a live show, wondered that if SCAF can’t stop the violence in Tahrir, and if Tantawy is lamenting the “victims in the square,” then who can stop them?

 

The official death toll from 19 November, when the clashes started, to Wednesday morning, stands at 35. Zeinhom morgue said it has received 90 dead bodies since Sunday. Several hundreds are injured, and many lost their eyes. Some protesters were reportedly rounded up for “rioting”, including a volunteer paramedic called Karim El Damanhoury.

  

As the darkness sets in on Wednesday, activists say they’re planning for a major sit-in, as Al Masry Al Youm reported that a doctor had died from the tear gas used against he demonstrators, raising the death toll to 36, pending an official announcement by the Health Ministry. On Twitter, the live updates continue under the hashtag #Tahrir, while concerned citizens still argue whether the type of gas used in riot control is the CS-type or the deadlier CR-based, which is internationally banned being classified as a chemical weapon, as they debate the best way to overcome its effects. Al-Jazeera’s live feed is showing army members erecting a barricade around Mohamed Mahmoud streets. 

 

The square itself, riddled with tents and injured bodies, remains clouded with both tear gas and much doubt.