GAZACITY, 1 March (IPS) - Tamer was nine, and no child soldier. He did not live in the area from where homemade rockets are launched into Israeli territory. The day he was killed, he was at least two kilometers from the place Israeli troops had entered Gaza, and met with return fire by Palestinian resistance. His tragedy was that the family home was near Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip, close to the area the Israelis have set up as their Kussfim base. Read more about Israel kills some more children
GAZACITY, 16 February (IPS) - Human remains mix with debris following the latest Israeli assault Friday on Bureij camp in Gaza Strip. Early reports listed nine dead and more than 50 injured. A targeted leader was killed, but many others were killed too. “It’s very hard for us to rescue, or even locate bodies beneath the building,” said a medical relief worker from the local Bureij hospital. Israel has not confirmed responsibility for the missile attack by F-16 aircraft. Read more about Gaza civilians die along with assassinated leader
RAFAH, Gaza Strip, 14 February (IPS) - After generations of occupation, Valentine’s Day has meant little in the Gaza Strip. But the flowers that lovers presented in Europe has. Majed Hadaeid, 43, knows that better than most, as he watches livestock make a meal of the flowers he had hoped to export to Europe. “I have 130 dunams [32 acres],” he says. “All carnations, in 30 different colors, and varieties yielding 16-17 million blossoms per year.” Read more about No Valentine break for Gaza flower producers
GAZACITY, 28 January (IPS) - A stream of dark and putrid sludge snakes through Gaza’s streets. It is a noxious mix of human and animal waste. The stench is overwhelming. The occasional passer-by vomits. Over recent days this has been a more common sight than the sale of food on the streets of Gaza, choked by a relentless Israeli siege. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans, almost all of its able male adults among a population of 1.5 million, crossed over into Egypt last week to buy essential provisions — and a new lease of life. That has staved off starvation. But streets continue as sewers. Read more about Closure turns Gaza's streets into sewers
GAZACITY, 21 January (IPS) - Seventy-six-year-old Mustapha al-Jamal goes door to door, looking for help in finding medicines for his son. At home, the 53-year-old son Yahya al-Jamal lies back, staring at the ceiling. By his side, an oxygen cylinder keeps him going for now. “My son’s condition continues to worsen,” Mustapha says. “We’ve been waiting two months for the medicines.” Last year Mustapaha’s 44-year-old daughter, a mother of six, died of breast cancer. She had been recovering, but the Israeli siege blocked supply of medicines, and no one could then save her. Read more about No rights, little mercy
GAZACITY, 10 January (IPS) - As US President George W. Bush began talks Thursday with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas supporters in Gaza were determined to make their absence count. Leaders from the Palestinian party Hamas that won the elections in Gaza two years back have inevitably not been invited to meet Bush. The US considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Hamas took control of Gaza by force from the Fatah party headed by Abbas in June last year, about a year and a half after it swept the polls in January 2006. Read more about In exclusion, Hamas counts
GAZACITY, December 24 (IPS) - “Santa Claus is empty handed this year … insolvent,” says Father Manuel Musallam, head of the Holy Family School in Gaza City. “All forms of celebration are absent,” he says, raising his empty palms skywards. “We Christians and Muslims all live in fear and instability. The Israeli tanks, bulldozers and warplanes have laid siege on us all.” His school, which has both Muslim and Christian students, likes to celebrate including all; this year few celebrations were planned, for fewer children. Read more about In Gaza, Santa is insolvent
GAZACITY, November 27 (IPS) - As Sunday dawns in Gaza City the traditional Islamic call to prayer mingles melodically with church bells. Side by side, mosque and church doors swing open, welcoming the faithful. Greetings are eagerly exchanged. The October kidnapping and murder of Rami Ayyad, the manager of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore, sent shudders through the Christian community. Was this a hate crime or simply a tragic occurrence? Monsignor Manuel Musallam, head of Gaza’s Roman Catholic community, doubts the attack was religiously motivated. Read more about Coexistence in Gaza
The most tragic event can easily happen when two ambulances from two hospitals start collecting the remains of the flesh of people who were killed. The collection of body parts within the chaos and destruction is definitely not an easy task, especially when there are groups of people being killed and two ambulances take the share of delivering all the victims remains to two different hospitals. Within this horrendously difficult process, one ambulance will have body parts of a victim that will take to a hospital, and the other ambulance will take (not knowing) other parts of flesh… leg, or arm, owned by the very same victim to another hospital to the north. Read more about Israel's rain of missiles on Gaza and Tae'er's legs
It smells unbelievably bad here. To walk down any street, if you dare to, you skirt, or sometimes unavoidably walk through, pools of blood. There are shreds of human flesh, some of them unrecognizable as human remains — all over, on rooftops, plastered to broken windows, on the street. The stench of rotting blood mixes with the more acrid odor of flesh burnt to black char by the rockets fired by the Israeli Army’s American-made Apache helicopters. Volunteer crews are gathering these human fragments and bringing them to Jabalya’s two hospitals but the ambulances cannot possibly keep up with the flood of newly dead and injured. Read more about The "Days of Penitence": Gaza Sinks in a Sea of Blood
