18 March 2008
TYRE, Lebanon, 17 March (IPS) - “I think the biggest challenge is to stay in the village,” says Ibrahim Sayyed, a 28-year-old municipality accountant from the beleaguered farming town of Aitaroun, situated barely a mile from the heavily patrolled Blue Line and Israel beyond. “My father and grandparents told me stories going back to 1948. All this time there has been war.” Read more about Farmers struggle to stay on their land
17 March 2008
PCHR is deeply concerned over storming the headquarters of Ramattan Press Agency in Ramallah by members of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service (PSS) and the arrest of a Palestinian journalist on Wednesday, 12 March 2008. PCHR believes that this attack constitutes an assault on press freedoms and the right to freedom of expression, and stresses that the rights to freedom of expression and to receive and impart information are ensured by the Palestinian Basic Law and international human rights instruments. Read more about Palestinian PSS storms Ramattan Press Agency in Ramallah
17 March 2008
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continues its tight siege and prevents movement of people and goods in and out of the Gaza Strip. This includes patients who are close to dying due to denied access to hospitals abroad. Sources from the Palestinian Ministry of Health have indicated that more than 100 patients have died since mid-June 2007. Read more about Palestinians in Gaza lose their livelihoods
16 March 2008
On 11 March 2008, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) stormed into Al Quds Radio and Al Majd Radio headquarters in Jenin, West Bank and confiscated most of the contents in the buildings. According to sources from Al Quds Radio, the IOF, which carried out an incursion into the town of Jenin, in the northern West Bank, raided the headquarters of the radio station. Read more about IOF shuts down two radio stations in Jenin
17 March 2008
Supporters of Lebanon’s March 14 movement tend to complain about the damage to tourism caused by the current status quo in Lebanon. Many of them cheered recently when the wheels of fortune seemed to swing their way as the US destroyer USS Cole approached Lebanese shores. Read more about Meet the Lebanese Press: US military "tourism"
17 March 2008
As 13 organizations working for human rights, social justice, and peace, we demand that The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan rescind its agreement to host the 18 March fundraiser for Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. The Israeli military has historically been a flagrant violator of human rights and international law as demonstrated by the recent attacks on Gaza that killed over 100 Palestinians, the 2006 attack on Lebanon, and the 60-year assault on and dispossession of the Palestinian people. Read more about Activists to Waldorf-Astoria: Cancel Friends of IDF fundraiser
14 March 2008
If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s most intractable, much the same can be said of the parallel debate about whether its resolution can best be achieved by a single state embracing the two peoples living there or by a division of the land into two separate states, one for Jews and the other for Palestinians. EI contributor Jonathan Cook asks the question: if one state is impossible, why is Olmert so afraid of it? Read more about Two-state dreamers
13 March 2008
TYRE, Lebanon, 12 March (IPS) - Soon after the US destroyer USS Cole was deployed off Lebanon’s shore 28 February to “preserve political stability”, a group of young men gathered around in the embattled agricultural town Qana in south Lebanon, and voiced their fears. “Everyone feels there is a war coming,” said Salman Ismael, a 22-year-old university student. “Especially after the killing of (Hizballah commander) Imad Mughniyeh and what is happening in Gaza.” Read more about Political crisis set to worsen
13 March 2008
This week on Crossing the Line: Israel continues its siege and steps up attacks on the Gaza Strip killing more than 100 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians according to various human rights organizations. Host Naji Ali speaks with journalist, Rami Almeghari, to get an update on the situation in Gaza. Read more about Crossing the Line interviews Gaza-based journalist Rami Almeghari
12 March 2008
JERUSALEM/GAZA, 12 March 2008 (IRIN) - Egypt has allowed over 200 Palestinian patients from the Gaza Strip to make their way into Egypt via the Rafah border crossing, according to Palestinian health officials. After the large-scale Israeli incursion into Jabalya refugee camp at the end of February and beginning of March, which killed about 120 and caused many injuries, Egypt allowed some of the wounded to enter its territory through Rafah. Read more about Egypt quietly lets in 230 patients from Gaza