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Water supply is priority issue for the south

12 March 2007


KHIYAM, 12 March 2007 (IRIN) - Water supply to hundreds of thousands of people across southern Lebanon remains the priority development issue, say officials, seven months after Israel’s bombardment of the area severely damaged an already inadequate water and sanitation system. The UN Children’s Agency, UNICEF, is implementing a series of projects across Lebanon to improve water supply, through its Water, Environment, Sanitation and Hygiene (WESH) unit. According to WESH figures, only 56 percent of Lebanese are connected to the mains water supply, which in poorer rural areas sometimes only works one day a week. 

Report: The continued closure of Rafah Crossing Point

12 March 2007


In its continued occupation of Gaza, the Israeli government and armed forces have repeatedly and routinely violated both international humanitarian law and the non-derogable human rights of the 1.4 million residents of Gaza. The almost continued closure of Rafah Crossing Point is one of the most insidious examples of this, and, as one of the biggest disappointments following the ‘disengagement’. Israel has consistently shown that the opening of Rafah Crossing Point relies wholly on its own whims. 

Clashes between Fatah and Hamas renewed in Beit Hanoun

11 March 2007


Violent clashes broke out between Fatah and Hamas in Beit Hanoun before midnight on 10 March 2007. Clashes erupted in the area close to Omar Abdul Aziz Mosque in the town and spread to different neighborhoods at night. The clashes have continued until today, 11 March 2007. The clashes resulted in the killing of 26-year-old Hussein Al Kafarnah, a member of the Executive Force, and the injury of eight others. One of them is in a critical condition. 

Palestinian Refugees of Iraq

Rafeef Ziadah 11 March 2007


On the border between Iraq/Jordan and Iraq/Syria today live hundreds of Palestinian families who fled the US war to find themselves stranded in no-mans land. These families live in tents, in squalor, with little certainty or hope for the future, like their parents and grandparents did after their expulsion from their own homeland in the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) by the Israelis. The Al-Hol, Al-Tanaf, Al-Ruweished and Al-Walid refugee camps in the Iraqi desert are examples of the on-going Nakba that Palestinian refugees face. The fate of the 34,000 Palestinian refugees who once lived in Iraq can be added to the many tragic stories of the US invasion and occupation of that country. 

Satisfaction, frustration and pride

Kaelen Wilson-Goldie Beirut 10 March 2007


BEIRUT: Nothing encourages artists to produce better work than competition. Last summer, for 34 days straight, two artists - one holed up in Achrafieh and the other holed up in Sin al-Fil - made drawing after drawing. When the power supply was on, they posted their pieces online, filling their respective blogs with diary-like accounts of living through the war in Lebanon. They each checked out the other’s work, as they each wondered how the other would respond to the day. Sometimes they felt the satisfaction of seeing a particularly trenchant piece of work. 

Report: Palestinian child prisoners in 2006

10 March 2007


In 2006, Israel continued its policy of arresting and imprisoning Palestinian children. Some 700 Palestinian children (under 18) were arrested by Israeli soldiers over the course of the year. Of these, around 25 children were held on administrative detention orders, imprisonment without charge or trial. The overwhelming majority of those arrested in 2006 were boys; there were eight girl child prisoners who served sentences at different points during the year. Of these, four had been arrested in 2006. At any given point during the year, there were between 340 and 420 Palestinian children held in Israeli prisons and detention centers in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. 

Journalists hit by Israeli stun grenades, tear-gassed

10 March 2007


New York, March 8, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned that two journalists were bruised by Israeli stun grenades at an Israeli military checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah today. Rami al-Faqih, a correspondent for the local Al-Quds Educational Television, and Iyad Hamad, a cameraman for The Associated Press, were each hit this morning as Israeli border police fired at journalists covering a peaceful protest marking International Women’s Day at the Qalandia checkpoint, the journalists told CPJ. 

BADIL: "Ongoing population transfer in OPT and Israel"

10 March 2007


Israel’s ongoing policies against the Palestinian people of land expropriation, house demolition, population transfer, colonial settlement expansion, denial of freedom of movement, and expropriation of water and other resources, present the Human Rights Council with one of the longest-standing, yet urgent cases of denial of internationally-recognized human rights. Under Israeli law and policy, only “Jewish nationals” exclusively enjoy a range of economic, social and cultural rights, including the “Law of Return” that allows free immigration for Jews, but denies the same to the Palestinian indigenous population tracing its ties to the land for thousands of years. 

“Future generations depend on our efforts”

Farid El Haffar 9 March 2007


“I want to be the first Palestinian woman to become president”, declares Suha, an ambitious 15 year-old Palestine refugee student from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. “And what would you do for me?” asks her English teacher Mervat. “I would hire you as my personal advisor!” responds Suha, as the two burst into laughter. Mervat and Suha are two very dynamic and enthusiastic women. Sitting in their school’s playground, Mervat explains, “I used to study in an UNRWA school like this one and I had an English teacher I liked very much, who inspired me to become a teacher”. “When I look at Suha and at the other students I have, I realise relationships have changed. 

Obama and the Jews

Harold Brackman 9 March 2007


Those looking for Obama’s views on the Mideast won’t find a great deal. In 2004, he disappointed Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada by giving a speech to Chicago’s Council on Foreign Relations endorsing the U.S. alliance with Israel. Speaking before Jewish audiences during his Senate campaign, he reassured them that his Swahili first name, Barack (“Blessed”), is a close relation of Baruch in Hebrew. His current bestseller, “The Audacity of Hope” — a carefully crafted manifesto positioning him for his 2008 run — has a page on a recent trip to the Mideast, where he talked to both Holocaust survivors and Palestinian villagers.