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Illegal discrimination against Palestinians in Lebanon

17 October 2007


BEIRUT, 17 October 2007 (IRIN) - The Lebanese government’s practices against Palestinian refugees continue to breach the country’s obligations under international human rights law and should be repealed immediately, according to a report released here on 17 October by Amnesty International. Lebanon has the highest percentage of all Palestinian refugees living in abject poverty, according to the UN’s Palestinian relief organization, UNRWA. 

What a "safe" cluster bomb did

Rebecca Murray 17 October 2007


TYRE, Lebanon, 15 October (IPS) - The explosion ripped through the tiny garden in rural south Lebanon, hurling Naemah Ghazi to the ground. The shrapnel from the bomb sliced through her legs, and she rapidly lost consciousness. “There was a lot of blood,” her mother Khadija recalls. “All her body was bleeding.” Naemah, 48, lived quietly with her mother in the border town Blida since her father passed away nearly 30 years ago. 

Audio: Crossing the Line interviews Nadia Hijab

18 October 2007


This week on Crossing The Line: With the looming November peace conference almost here, many see the event as nothing more than a mere photo-op for the leaders of those countries who have been invited to take part. The US government’s role in supporting the Israeli occupation is not a secret, as the US gives billions in unconditional aid to Israel each year. But has this always been the case? Host Christopher Brown speaks with Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies about why, when and how the US stood up in the past to the Israeli juggernaut. 

The show goes on ... and on

Ali Abunimah 16 October 2007


The “Middle East Peace Process” is like one of those big budget Broadway extravaganzas; they go on for years, but with each revival the cast changes. What may seem like a tired production to some nevertheless manages to remain fresh to the gullible throngs willing to hand over the price of admission. EI’s Ali Abunimah comments. 

Another Mideast envoy fed up with quartet

Haider Rizvi 15 October 2007


UNITED NATIONS, Oct 15 (IPS) - The United Nations has come under strong criticism from one of its own top human rights officials for failing to take effective action to check the ongoing Israeli abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories. Expressing his anger and frustration at the fast-deteriorating human rights situation in Gaza and the West Bank, John Dugard, the UN special rapporteur on human rights for the Palestinian territories since 2001, has suggested that the world body quit the Middle East Quartet. 

Formalizing apartheid packaged as peace initiative

Neta Golan and Mohammed Khatib 16 October 2007


Next month the US plans to host a regional meeting to discuss peace in the Middle East, or at least peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The maneuvering, deal making and negotiating about what will be on the table has been going on for some time. But the details of the agreement being discussed have been a well-guarded secret but for the steady flow of leaks and trial balloons. Deciphering this information combined with facts on the ground, one can put together a clear outline of Israel’s “next generous offer.” Neta Golan and Mohammed Khatib comment for EI. 

Disaster capitalism: Israel as warning

Raymond Deane 14 October 2007


In her new book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein argues that in the wake of natural and unnatural disasters, neo-liberal economic reform is foisted on stricken societies while their citizens are in a condition of collective disorientation. She writes, in a context where “instability is the new stability,” “Israel is often held up as a kind of Exhibit A.” Contributor Raymond Deane reviews Klein’s blockbuster for EI. 

Planting seeds of independence

Rami Almeghari Rafah, Gaza Strip 14 October 2007


“We have just initiated our small project with an intent to help these simple rural women sustain amidst their families’ harsh economic conditions,” says Yassmin Moor, a young Palestinian-American woman who manages a domestic gardening project in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah. The project, which has been a part of the US-based Save Gaza program, is intended to empower poor women in the rural and remote areas of the Gaza Strip. EI correspondent Rami Almeghari reports. 

Separation of families "priority humanitarian issue"

14 October 2007


JERUSALEM, 14 October 2007 (IRIN) - Some 580 women living in the occupied Golan region are disconnected from their families in Syria as they are not allowed to cross from the occupied zone to their homeland, a new women’s organization has said. “All the Arabs of the Golan have some family in Syria. But these women are disconnected from their mothers, fathers and brothers and sisters,” said Souha Munder, a lawyer who works with the new group, which calls itself The Women of the Occupied Arab-Syrian Golan. 

Palestinians return to desolate, dangerous camp

12 October 2007


NAHR AL-BARED, 12 October (IRIN) - The first Palestinian families displaced by 15 weeks of intense fighting between the army and Islamist militants that left much of north Lebanon’s Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in ruins have begun returning home to start rebuilding their lives. “I never imagined I would have to leave my home again,” said 80-year-old Mahmoud Nimr Abdou as he boarded the bus carrying the first refugees home from neighboring Baddawi camp, where the majority of the up to 40,000 people displaced from Nahr al-Bared have been living in cramped conditions. “I will kiss the ground when I return.”