“Perhaps some youth are trying to imitate what’s going in the outside world; we don’t have solid information on the existence of such groups,” said Palestinian Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Helal in response to the recent attack on a UN-operated school in Rafah City. Early this week, a group of militants opened fire on a celebration at a UN-operated elementary school in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, having warned ahead of time that the event was “indecent.” Read more about In Gaza, chaos versus democracy and democracy versus chaos
Forty-eight-year-old Riyad Hammad from the Maghazi Refugee Camp in central Gaza woke up on Friday morning whilst his wife sat before a wood-burning stove. He headed for a nearby store, not to buy cookies, or anything else, but rather to bring some used papers and pieces of carton outside the store’s front door to his waiting wife. Since being cut off of work following the outbreak of the intifada in 2000 and the imposition of Israeli closures, Riyad has been collecting torn-apart carton packing material and used papers in order to save a few shekels due his inability to afford gas and electricity. Read more about A cheerless Labor Day in Gaza
The building in which the American International School in Gaza is situated is no longer beautiful. The damage can be seen in many corners of the school — in the front door, in the director’s office, in the cafeteria or in the computer room. “We have become Iraq,” a dusty man said while bending down on the floor, trying to clear away the debris from an explosion that rocked the school early Saturday morning. The principal’s office only contains torn apart chairs and shelves, with black big spots on the walls; the cafeteria’s chairs are now black, while the computer room is no longer hi-tech. Read more about Bombing of American school: Gaza's latest nightmare
Mountains of garbage, billowing smoke, have been concentrated across the streets of Gaza the past few days. However, the uncollected garbage heaps are not cannot be attributed to a lack of municipalities or labor force in the coastal region. One third of the 1.4 million-strong Gaza population is in the labor force that may be more aptly described as an “idle” labor force, and there are 25 municipalities tasked with sanitation. Also, there are high-tech electricity, water and telecommunications networks in the Gaza Strip, believed to be the most advanced in the region. Read more about Mounting garbage and frustration in Gaza
Since the abduction by Palestinian resistance groups of Israeli soldier Gila’d Shalit on 25 June 2006, Israeli gunships have prevented Palestinians from fishing off the Gaza coast. This has severely affected both fishermen and food security for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Thirty-thousand people are dependant on Gaza’s fishing industry, but since last June, the Israeli naval forces have harassed those Palestinian fishing boats that dare leave the dock. In the main fishing site of Gaza City, called Almina, there are dozens of fishermen trying to feed their children under harsh economic conditions. Read more about Gaza's fishing industry under siege
Rami AlmeghariGaza Strip, Palestine3 February 2007
Internal unrest in Gaza City since last Thursday, manifested in clashes between Fatah and Hamas supporters, has claimed 25 lives, wounded dozens of others and caused destruction to many public infrastructure such as universities and governmental buildings. Movement in Gaza city is almost paralyzed. The United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA) announced it would keep all its schools closed starting from February 3 until calm is restored. The Palestinian Authority institutions were almost empty on Saturday, as employees refrained from going to places of work out of fear they might come across fire. Read more about "We don't need either Hamas or Fatah"
In an imagined (but somehow very real) countryside there live various kinds of birds, living in peace and enjoying their life among trees, waterfalls and gardens. Once, the birds had an idea that they should elect a chair-bird with a board, all the birds responded positively to the idea, so they set a date for such an election process. They day they set was a winter day, while they are all hibernating. All the birds were involved actively in the electoral process, although the rains were falling heavily overhead, but they appeared very happy for such a remarkable day, unlike any they had ever experienced before. Read more about When Birds are No Longer Birds: An Allegory
Today I am crying alone. My friends Saed from Beit Sahour and Jenka (a very good American woman) are leaving for the States, where Jenka is living. The young couple have decided to leave Palestine, seeking a new life with no military occupation, no Apartheid Wall, no checkpoints, no bypass routes, no restrictions on roads. Saed, Jenka and myself have never seen or met each other in person since we began working together for the past couple of years, even though we all live in the same country, Palestine. But unfortunately for our friendship, the young couple is based in the West Bank and I am in the Gaza Strip. Read more about Imaginary Hugs In Palestine
Just prior to 1948, the Palestinians realized that they were about to get rid of the British colonial hegemony that began in 1917, yet they woke up on the day the Britons left to another occupation, called Israel. Since that year, Palestinians began all over again to fight for their sovereignty over their ancestral lands; however, despite recent peace agreements with their occupiers, they have not so far attained that sovereignty. The international community, which clearly concedes the Palestinians’ legitimate right to fight the occupation on the path to freedom and statehood, has so far not been able to involve itself actively to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Read more about Who has failed?
The title of this piece is not related to Ernest Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms, but is instead a reference to a conflict in the Middle East, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, particularly the part of that conflict being played out in Gaza, an area which has remained one of the most highly volatile places on this earth for several decades. In the last decade, the conflicting parties have time and again said “farewell to arms” amidst deaths caused by their conflict, with the hope that such an announcement would save them from more bloodshed. The past five months saw the most severe round of fighting in Gaza, that has so far claimed the lives of 479 Palestinians. Read more about Farewell to Arms in Gaza
