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"The amount of death and destruction is inconceivable"

Safa Joudeh Gaza Strip 27 December 2008


It was just before noon when I heard the first explosion. I rushed to my window and barely did I get there and look out when I was pushed back by the force and air pressure of another explosion. For a few moments I didn’t understand but then I realized that Israeli promises of a wide-scale offensive against the Gaza Strip had materialized. Safa Joudeh writes from the besieged Gaza Strip. 

The rains of death in Gaza

Laila El-Haddad North Carolina 27 December 2008


We woke up this morning to the news in Gaza. It seems we always wake up to news there — so it has become a matter of perspective how bad the news is each time; how remote it seems each time; how real or not; how severe and whether the severity warrants an “international outcry” or whether the animals can continue to suffer in their cages for a while longer. Laila El-Haddad writes from the US. 

Rights orgs: Israel's willful killings a war crime

27 December 2008


Palestinian human rights organizations strongly condemn the recent military attacks carried out by the Israeli occupying forces in the Gaza Strip on 27 December 2008. The attacks began at approximately 11:30am and lasted for approximately three hours. These attacks have destroyed most of the Gaza security offices including police stations, resulting in the deaths of more than 200 Palestinians. 

Boycott committee: "Stop the massacre in Gaza - boycott Israel now!"

27 December 2008


Today, the Israeli occupation army committed a new massacre in Gaza, causing the death and injury of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including a yet unknown number of school children who were headed home from school when the first Israeli military strikes started. This latest bloodbath, although far more ruthless than all its predecessors, is not Israel’s first. 

Gaza massacres must spur us to action

Ali Abunimah 27 December 2008


“I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing.” Those were the words, spoken on Al Jazeera today by Ofer Shmerling, an Israeli civil defense official in the Sderot area adjacent to Gaza, as images of Israel’s latest massacres were broadcast around the world. A short time earlier, US-supplied Israeli F-16 warplanes and Apache helicopters dropped over 100 bombs on dozens of locations in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip killing at least 195 persons and injuring hundreds more. Many of these locations were police stations located, like police stations the world over, in the middle of civilian areas. The Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah comments. 

No bread in Gaza

Rami Almeghari Gaza Strip 25 December 2008


Yesterday, after I finished my lecture at one of Gaza’s universities, my wife asked me to bring some bread from Gaza City. All bakeries in our area have stopped operating because of the lack of flour and cooking gas due to Israel’s 18-month siege of the territory. I drove throughout Gaza City to try to find some bread for my four children, instead finding a miserable scene. The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari writes from the occupied Gaza Strip. 

Hunger before the storm

Sameh A. Habeeb Gaza Strip 25 December 2008


Israeli politicians, in the run-up to elections, are promising to deal a severe blow to Gaza as this is how Israeli policy is made. However, every household in Gaza is already under siege. In Gaza you can only find pale, angry and frustrated faces. If you visit my house you won’t find power, while my neighbor is out of gas. Another neighbor seeks potable water as power outages have left him without for four days. A third neighbor desparately looks for milk for his child but does so in vain. Sameh A. Habeeb writes from the occupied Gaza Strip. 

Death penalty in Palestinian territories alarms rights groups

Mel Frykberg 24 December 2008


RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has sent urgent letters to Palestinian leaders in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, urging them to commute the death sentences of 11 Palestinians currently awaiting execution. The death-row inmates, including one who was a juvenile at the time of his conviction, were sentenced this year by Palestinian military and state security courts. 

Championing global human rights: interview with Richard Falk

Victor Kattan 24 December 2008


Earlier this month, Israeli authorities deported Professor Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who had arrived in the country to conduct his duties to investigate rights abuses in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Electronic Intifada contributor Victor Kattan interviews Falk about the motivation behind his deportation. 

Boycott L'Oreal: Makeup for Israeli apartheid

Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) 23 December 2008


In this holiday season, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee calls upon people of conscience all over the world to boycott all the products of the French cosmetics giant, L’Oreal, due to its deep and extensive involvement in business relations with Israel, despite the latter’s continued occupation and apartheid policies against the indigenous Palestinian people.