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Palestinian refugees in Egypt face discrimination, say experts

21 June 2006


Palestinian refugees in Egypt continue to face major obstacles, including formidable travel restrictions and a lack of access to basic government services, such as free education. “They don’t have many rights,” said Ashraf Milad, a lawyer specialising in forced migration studies at the American University in Cairo. There are currently some 70,000 Palestinians in Egypt who - unlike their compatriots in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon - are not served by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), established in 1949 with the express purpose of assisting Palestinian refugees fleeing the nascent Israeli occupation. 

UN Health Rights Expert criticizes donors for failing their humanitarian responsibilities

21 June 2006


The UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Professor Paul Hunt, reminded the donor community that it has a responsibility to provide humanitarian assistance to the population in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). While welcoming last weekend’s emergency aid plan, the UN health rights expert emphasised that the acute funding crisis in the OPT, which is jeopardising the delivery of basic health services to the sick and infirm, arises from the deliberate actions of the donors themselves. 

A Week of Israeli Restraint

Tanya Reinhart 22 June 2006


In Israeli discourse, Israel is always presented as the side exercising restraint in its conflict with the Palestinians. In the past week, it was “leaked” that the Israeli Minister of Defense had directed the army to show restraint. During the past week of Israeli restraint, the army killed a Palestinian family who went on a picnic on the Beit Lahya beach in the Gaza Strip; after that, the army killed nine people in order to liquidate a Katyusha rocket. 

Hudson Institute and 'Eye on the UN' join the ranks of gutter journalists

Yacoub Kahlen 22 June 2006


Recently, the Hudson Institute, a prestigious, academic think-tank in the United States, with an impressive list of associates though strongly pro-Israel roots, released a surprisingly amateurish report through its project ‘Eye on the UN’. The report criticises the United Nations for granting consultative status to the internationally respected Palestinian NGO Badil. As Yacoub Kahlen writes, their flimsy critiques are strong indications of the growing desperation amongst elite supporters of Israel that the Zionist lobby is losing the moral argument, and just like the NGO Monitor, the ‘Eye on the UN’ should not be taken seriously by anyone interested in serious analysis and a human rights perspective. 

Film Review: "Kings and Extras": Digging for a Palestinian Image

Maymanah Farhat 21 June 2006


Azza El Hassan’s documentary Kings and Extras: Digging for a Palestinian Image chronicles the director’s journey on the trail of the lost PLO film archive that went missing in Beirut in 1982. Through the narratives of individuals whose interviews El Hassan feels can assist her with locating the lost archive, the film touches on several aspects of contemporary Palestinian life. The engaging documentary was featured in this year’s Chicago Palestine Film Festival, adding yet another dimension to the chronicling of Palestinian history. 

Film Review: The Balata Film Collective: "Nour's Dream"

Maymanah Farhat 21 June 2006


This year at the Chicago Palestine Film Festival, the Balata Film Collective presented their thirty-one minute documentary Nour’s Dream. Through a visual journey of Palestinian history, culture, heritage and resistance the film demonstrates the imperative need for the documentation of Palestinian lives. As the fictional main character, Nour narrates the documentary by informing the viewer of the significance of stones within past and present Palestinian society. 

The truth lies buried in Gaza sands

Jonathan Cook 21 June 2006


If you keep lying long enough and with enough conviction, people start to believe you — or at least doubt the evidence in front of their own eyes. And so it has been with the Israeli army’s account of how seven members of a Palestinian family were killed, and dozens of other Palestinians injured, during shelling close by a beach in Gaza. The army has been claiming for more than a week, based on its own evidence, that the lethal explosion was not caused by a stray shell landing on the Gaza beach but most probably by a mine placed there by Palestinian militants to prevent an Israeli naval landing. The army’s case could be dismissed outright were it not for the racist assumptions that now prevail as Western “thought” about Arabs and Muslims. 

We don't need no occupation: Roger Waters graffitis the Israeli Wall in Palestine

21 June 2006


Roger Waters founding member, with Syd Barrett, of the super group Pink Floyd visited the West Bank city of Bethlehem on June 21, 2006. He called for an end to the on-going Israeli Occupation. Waters moved Thursday’s concert from Hayarkon Park outside Tel Aviv after discussions with Palestinian artists, as well as Israeli refuseniks, who called on him to use the gig as a platform to build solidarity with those fighting the injustices of Israeli foreign policy. 

3 Palestinian Children Killed and 15 Others Wounded in a Failed Extra-Judicial Execution Attempt Carried out by IOF

21 June 2006


On Tuesday evening, 20 June 2006, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) carried a new extra-judicial execution attempt in the northern Gaza Strip. Whereas the targeted persons survived the attack, 3 Palestinian children were killed and 15 other Palestinians, including the three targeted persons were wounded. IOF admitted responsibility for the attack, and claimed that they targeted “a senior official of Fatah movement who is the leader of a group responsible for manufacturing and launching rockets.” 

International Benefit Concert for Palestine in London

21 June 2006


On the 29th of June, 2006, the Balata-London Link Benefit Concert will take place at the Rivoli Ballroom in London, the United Kingdom. The Rivoli Ballroom is a unique venue in South London, that used to be a cinema in earlier times, and hosts 700 seats. The benefit is organized by John Hamilton, conductor of the Strawberry Thieves Choir, and aims to raise funds to bring a group of children from Balata Refugee Camp over to London, to work with youth groups and create drama and dance together.