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As Gaza Burns

Laila El-Haddad Gaza City, Palestine 16 May 2007


Things have been crazy in Gaza over the past two days. Very crazy. In between working and actually trying to keep our wits about us as we’ve been holed up indoors for two days no, I’ve had little time to blog. Things are tenusouly calm at the moment with on-again-off-again gunfire, which is better than it was only a few hours ago. But things in Gaza have a way of changing very quickly-for better or for worse. Volatility is its defining characteristic. We happen to be sort of be in the eye of the storm as it were. 

Situation Report: Rising death toll in Gaza

16 May 2007


Internal fighting in Gaza is now entering its fourth day with at least 37 dead and 114 injured since Sunday. This is the third round of intense factional fighting seen in Gaza this year leaving at least 128 Palestinians dead and 692 injured since 1 January 2007. Following the killing of a senior Fatah leader on Sunday 13 May in Jabalia in northern Gaza, violence erupted throughout the Gaza Strip and particularly in Gaza City. Two attempted ceasefires collapsed within hours and fighting continued between Fatah forces and Hamas and its affiliated Executive Support Force (ESF). 

A double Nakba in Gaza

Rami Almeghari Gaza Strip, Palestine 15 May 2007


My pen is bleeding, my hand is shaking, my heart is sighing and my mind is stuffed with the bitter experiences of the past 14 months. The latest is today’s anniversary of the Palestinian catastrophe (Nakba); today is a double Nakba. My ideas are scrambled; however, I must rein them all in and allow my words to flow, with the hope of reaching hearts, minds and souls. “I prefer death to these days; death is much better than these moments when a brother kills his brother”, said Yousef Almadhoun, also known as Abu Mohammad, a 77-year-old man from the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya. 

Journalist, media worker killed in Gaza City

14 May 2007


The Committee to Protect Journalist is outraged by the killings of a journalist and a media worker, who were shot on Sunday in Gaza City. Gunmen wearing presidential guard uniforms stopped a taxi carrying Suleiman Abdul-Rahim al-Ashi, 25, an economics editor for the Hamas-affiliated daily Palestine, and Mohammad Matar Abdo, 25, a manager responsible for distribution and civic relations, Editor-in-Chief Mustafa al-Sawaf told CPJ today. The taxi was stopped at 2:30 p.m. in a high-security area southwest of Gaza City that is controlled by Fatah, al-Sawaf and other journalists told CPJ. 

The Nakba has Never Ended

Julia Pitner 15 May 2007


The sad truth is that while the Palestinians commemorate the Nakba of 1948, the disaster is ongoing up until today. Now, however, the oppression is subtler than the forced marches of the citizens of Ramla, the forced exodus of hundreds of thousands, or those who fled from violence or from the fear and confusion about what the Jewish militias were threatening or the Arab governments promising. It is a slow, forced exodus that is not exciting enough to warrant any airtime or column space. 

Eighteen killed in two days of Gaza fighting

15 May 2007


Armed clashes have seriously spread and escalated between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza. Eighteen Palestinians have been killed and 80 admitted at hospitals [with] wounds (many of the wounded are cared for by their factions) since Sunday 13 May 2007. Dozens have also been abducted, of whom Al Mezan documented 21 cases, including Gaza’s Police Director and two university professors. Severe tension prevails around the Gaza Strip as factions build on militants and erect checkpoints and barracks. 

Human rights worker released after two years in administrative detention

14 May 2007


Ahmad Abu Haniya, the AIC Youth Project Coordinator, will be released from administrative detention this morning (Tuesday 14 May), after two years of imprisonment without trial or charges. Ahmad was detained at a checkpoint on his way to work on 18 May 2005 and placed in administrative detention, which is imprisonment without trial or charges. 

Aid agencies dig in as Gaza erupts

15 May 2007



GAZA CITY, 15 May 2007 (IRIN) - Renewed infighting among rival Palestinian armed groups has put aid agencies on the alert for more bloodshed as well as threats to their staff in the troubled Gaza Strip. More than 400 Palestinians have been killed in clashes mainly between militias affiliated to the Hamas and Fatah political parties in the past 14 months. Inter-Palestinian violence, some of it clan-related rather than political, is accounting for at least as many Palestinian deaths as Israeli military action, the UN reported this year. 

"There is no Substitute for the Return to our Homes"

15 May 2007


As a result of the Zionist aggression against Palestine, the plight of the Palestinian people is accumulative and ongoing. Now, in the 59th year of our forced displacement, we are threatened with new forced displacement due to the construction of the Apartheid Wall and policies of siege and starvation intended to break the Palestinian people, and to end our demands and struggle for our rights under international law and, in particular, under UN Resolution 194. 

A political marriage of necessity: A single state of Palestine-Israel

Ali Abunimah 14 May 2007


When my mother was nine years old, she and her family mounted the back of a pickup truck and left their village of Lifta, adjacent to Jerusalem, under threat from Zionist militias. My grandmother covered the furniture in the family home that my grandfather had built. Anticipating a short absence until fighting in the area died down, they took only a few clothes. That was almost six decades ago. Like hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians, they were never allowed to return, and their property was seized by Israel.