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UN expert urges Israel to stop destruction in Gaza, calls for military sanctions

13 November 2006


As Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, I condemn in the strongest possible terms the artillery shelling of Palestinian homes by the Israeli defence force in Beit Hanoun that killed 19 innocent civilians and injured 60, including women and children. The explanation by Israeli authorities that this wantonly criminal act was a mistake is unacceptable. The shelling and subsequent killing of civilians indicates a premeditated military tactic constituting a form of collective punishment against the Palestinian people. Since 25 June 2006, the most recent Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, I continue to receive alarming reports about deliberate attacks by Israeli forces… 

UNSC fails to adopt draft resolution, owing to US veto

11 November 2006


The Security Council this afternoon failed to adopt a resolution condemning Israeli military operations in Gaza “which have caused loss of civilian life”, as well as Palestinian rocket fire into Israel, while calling for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and a cessation of violence from both parties in the conflict. The draft, which was not adopted owing to the negative vote of the United States, a permanent Member of the Council, would have also requested Secretary-General Kofi Annan to establish a fact-finding mission within 30 days on the 8 November incident in Beit Hanoun, which resulted in the deaths of at least 18 civilians and sparked a day-long Council meeting on Thursday. 

South Africa seen as model for Palestine

Ali Abunimah 12 November 2006


As I watched the images last week of destruction from the Gaza Strip, where an Israeli shelling attack had killed an entire family, as a Palestinian I could understand the feelings of one survivor who said, “I cannot see a day when we will live in peace with them.” But I also know there is no other choice. or decades, the conventional wisdom has been that this conflict can only be resolved by partitioning the country into two states. Yet despite enormous efforts to achieve this, the two peoples remain thoroughly if unhappily intertwined. Israel’s project of establishing settler-colonies inside the territories where Palestinians wanted to create a state has rendered separation impossible. 

Arab Foreign Ministers criticize US veto on Gaza

13 November 2006


Foreign ministers of 11 Arab countries attending an emergency Arab League meeting in Cairo on Sunday, criticised a United States veto of a United Nations Security Council draft resolution that condemned the recent Israeli offensive on Gaza and that would have demanded that Israeli troops pull out from the area. The draft resolution calling for the protection of civilians during Israeli military operations in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, was vetoed on Saturday by the US in a special meeting held here at the UN Security Council. Though language proposed by Qatar was modified first to placate other council members, the resolution still did not go through. Ten of the 15 members were in favour of the draft resolution, while four abstained, including the United Kingdom, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia. 

UN expert urges Israel to stop destruction in Gaza, calls for military sanctions

10 November 2006


“As Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, I condemn in the strongest possible terms the artillery shelling of Palestinian homes by the Israeli defence force in Beit Hanoun that killed 19 innocent civilians and injured 60, including women and children. The explanation by Israeli authorities that this wantonly criminal act was a mistake is unacceptable. […] I urgently call for an international independent investigation of the events and the deployment of international forces in the region. I also urge the international community, in view of their human rights and humanitarian law obligations, to reconsider the continuation of military cooperation with Israel.” 

US vetoes Security Council draft resolution on Israeli operations in Gaza

11 November 2006


Exercising its veto in the Security Council today, the United States blocked a draft resolution that won the endorsement of 10 other members and would have called for a United Nations fact-finding mission in response to a recent Israeli operation in Gaza resulting in at least 18 civilian deaths. Sponsored by Qatar, the draft would have condemned Israeli military operations in Gaza as well as Palestinian rocket fire into Israel, while calling for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and a cessation of violence by both parties. Four countries – the United Kingdom, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia – abstained on the text. 

Montreal in Solidarity with Beit Hanoun

Stefan Christoff 11 November 2006


MONTREAL: As Israeli continues its brutal assault on the Gaza Strip, Montrealers took the streets to voice solidarity with the Palestinian people. Hundreds of demonstrators marched through the heart of Montreal reflecting growing international outrage toward the latest attack on Gaza. “Intifada! Intifada! Long Live the Intifada!” shouted demonstrators marching under rainy skies, in contrast to the silence of Canadian politicians in response to Israeli war crimes committed in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. 

Pinochet in Palestine

Joseph Massad 11 November 2006


Before the United States government subcontracted the Chilean military to overthrow the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in 1973, it carried out a number of important missions in the country in preparation for the coup of 11 September. These included major strikes, especially by truck owners, which crippled the economy, massive demonstrations that included middle-class housewives and children carrying pots and pans demanding food, purging the Chilean military of officers who would oppose the suspension of democracy and the introduction of US-supported fascist rule, and a major media campaign against the regime with the CIA planting stories in newspapers like El Mercurio and others. 

R2P could prove solution for protection failure in Gaza

Arjan El Fassed 10 November 2006


The emergent doctrine of the “responsibility to protect” locates primary responsibility squarely with the government of the state in question. But it also stresses the collective responsibility of other states for protecting civilians of any state facing genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity. This response should be the exercise of first peaceful and then, if necessary, coercive (including forceful) steps to protect civilians. Considering the inability of the Israel to protect Palestinian civilians, the international community shares a collective responsibility to protect civilians by getting Israel - through persuasion or otherwise - to abide by the Geneva Conventions. 

Immersion Crash Course In Medical Arabic

Bill Dienst Az-Zawiya, Palestine 5 November 2006


I am now working with a different medical crew, this time in the Salfit district. This Mobile Health Unit is also sponsored by Medical Relief Society. We started at our base in the town of Salfit and had to drive around the huge settlement of Ariel, the second largest settlement, (after Ma’ale Addumin) in the West Bank. We passed through the major Israeli military checkpoint of Zatara, which controls and stifles the flow of traffic between Ramallah and Nablus. I am getting used to all this oppression which now has a strange sort of normalcy. Going out through this checkpoint was uneventful; coming back in to Salfit will be another story.