BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip -- After his 12-year-old son died in a hail of bullets in 2000, Jamal al-Dura became the public face of Palestinian suffering as the second intifadah began. He traveled across the Arab world, standing as a symbol of perceived Israeli brutality and growing wealthy from the largesse showered upon him.

Nearly five years later, however, Dura says he has tired of mouthing the counterproductive mottos of Palestinian hard-liners.

Instead, with Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last month, he has turned to building a grand new home for his eight surviving children and he has forbidden his eldest son from joining any militant movement, at least until he finishes university.

He's only the most famous of a minority of Gaza Palestinians who are rejecting the all-encompassing culture of intifadah, jihad, and martyrdom that has turned camps like Bureij and Jabaliya into locomotives of the Palestinian militant factions.

These Palestinians believe Gaza has reaped few results from decades of war and militia leadership; now, these disenchanted Palestinians say, it's time to replace calls to arms and total victory over Israel with real improvements for Palestinians, like better education, housing, and jobs.

places like Jabaliya, which is nicknamed ''The Citadel of the Martyr Warriors" because its youths have long fed the factional Palestinian militias, mostly Hamas and Fatah.

''Citadel of fools is more like it," declared Jamal abu Nasser, the owner of a taxi fleet whose dispatch center is across the street from the main Hamas mosque in Jabaliya.

''Look at them," he said as hundreds of teenagers in green Hamas baseball caps and headbands converged on the mosque, preparing for a Friday afternoon militia rally. ''They act like it's some kind of wedding."

Abu Nasser, 52, said he tired of the imam's kind of talk a decade ago. He is a no-nonsense businessman who holds forth for hours at his dispatch center, indifferent to the scores of young Hamas and Fatah supporters who can hear his scathing critique of the leaders he describes as ''corrupt, delusional militants."

''We cannot defeat Israel. Jerusalem will never be a Palestinian capital. This is empty talk," Abu Nasser said. ''Most people don't understand this reality."

''I am happy, but my joy is not complete, because Israel still controls the sea, the sky and the crossings," said Mohammed Ahmed Moussa, 62, a grocer in Jabaliya.

But then, as if finished with the standard talking points, he ridiculed the Hamas supporters across the square.

''Let's be frank. If Israel didn't want to leave Gaza, no one could have forced them out," Moussa said. ''Those who claim the rockets and attacks made them leave are kidding themselves."

Dura doesn't think the intifadah is over. ''This is just a truce," he said. He has returned to work as a construction contractor for the first time since he was wounded five years ago.

He is building a four-story apartment building for his children, full of luxurious touches like decorative molding on the ceilings. A rich Gulf sheik gave Dura $100,000 to build the new house, he said.

But his family's turn away from the spotlight shouldn't be mistaken as a full embrace of peace.

''I wanted to be a military commander," Iyad said. But the Palestinian Authority rejected his application to be one of the handful of students it sponsors to study at military academies in friendly Arab countries.

''Now I want to come back to Gaza and work as a prosecutor," Iyad said. ''I will be a lawyer, and others jihadis. Both are important.
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