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International blockades threaten Palestinian schools

Toni O'Loughlin 29 August 2006


Palestinian parents are huddling on street corners, in cafes and in mosques and talking nervously about the looming crisis in their children’s education. The five month long financial blockade on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority (PA) is now threatening to shut down the education system. With an alarmingly high unemployment rate of 40 per cent and most civil servants, including most teachers without paychecks for five months now, few households can afford the expense of sending the students back to school when the summer holidays end. 

Gaza siege causing major health crisis

29 August 2006


Gaza hospitals are facing a crisis because of a western and Israeli economic boycott, and an Israeli military offensive. The United Nations has warned of an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation. “The siege and closure imposed by Israel have hindered medical aid from Jordan, Qatar, the Red Cross and the EU from reaching us,” said Dr Ma’awiya Hasanein, general manager of the emergency section in the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is a Palestinian-administered strip of land bordering Israel and Egypt. It was fully occupied by Israel from 1967 until mid-2005, when it was handed over to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). 

Six Palestinians killed in escalating IOF offensive on Gaza Strip

28 August 2006


According to Al Mezan field sources, on 28 August at approximately 5:50am an Israeli fighter jet fired a rocket at a group of members of the executive forces of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior, while gathering at the end of Al Mansoura Street in Al Shaja’ia. The shelling resulted in the killing of four members of these forces: Mahmoud Hamdi Jondia, 20, Mohammed Mostafa, 20, Khaled Kamal Al Ijla, 22, Ibrahim Sadeq Hellis, 20. Further, seven Palestinians, including five children were injured as a result of the constant arbitrary firing by the IOF in the area. 

What the camera fails to see

Mayssoun Sukarieh Beirut 29 August 2006


No matter how hard the photographers tried to capture with the camera what the eye sees, the picture cannot fully communicate the scene. It does not take with it the smell, the thoughts, the feelings one experiences while walking among the rubble left by the Israeli war machine. On the TV stations, one can see the toys of children shattered everywhere, broken furniture, torn out clothes. But on the TV stations or on the pages of newspapers, these are just items, objects one sees and one’s eyes get used to them, just like how the bodies of the deceased become objectified while on screen. 

In Gaza, Israeli missile strikes Reuters vehicle and wounds two

28 August 2006


The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the apparent targeting of two Palestinian cameramen by Israeli forces in Gaza City late Saturday. A missile struck their armored car in the densely populated Shijaiyah neighborhood, seriously wounding Fadel Shana, a freelance cameraman for Reuters, and Sabbah Hmaida, a cameraman with a private Palestinian TV facilities house, Media Group. Reuters said the vehicle was clearly marked “Press” on all sides. The missile struck the letter “P” of the bright red “Press” sign on the car’s roof, the news agency added. Shana lost consciousness for several hours and suffered shrapnel wounds in his right hand and leg, Reuters reported. Hmaida sustained serious leg wounds from shrapnel. 

Lebanese who cannot return home fear being forgotten

Reem Alsalem 28 August 2006


Jamila Mehanna joined the rush back to her village in south Lebanon the moment the shooting stopped. Two weeks later she is living with other displaced Lebanese in a public building in Sidon, not sure when she will again be in her own house. “After the ceasefire came into effect, I went immediately with my kids to check out the house. I found the Israeli tanks at the outskirts of the village and so I turned around. I prefer to wait for the Lebanese army to take control before I go home,” she said. Amid the emphasis on getting daily convoys of UNHCR aid into battered villages and the return of most Lebanese to their homes, victims of the war like Jamila fear they could be forgotten by the refugee agency and other organisations. 

OCHA: Unexploded ordnances the most urgent threat

25 August 2006


The Government of Lebanon’s (GOL) Higher Relief Council (HRC) reports to date that 1,187 Lebanese have been killed and approximately 4,060 injured. Unexploded ordnances, particularly cluster munitions, remains the most urgent threat to the beneficiaries and humanitarian workers. 12 people have been killed and 51 wounded by UXO and cluster bombs since 14 August. The Mine Action Coordination Centre has thus far 249 strike locations, a figure which is expected to rise. Demining activities are ongoing by the Lebanese army in Nabatieh, clearing residential areas such as Zawtar and by UNMACC in Yohmor, Smayieh, Ras Al Ain, Tebnine and Aita Al Jabal in South Lebanon. 

At home with unexploded bombs

24 August 2006


Fifteen-year-old Ali Al-Hady begs his father to let him into his room, which was hit by four Israeli missiles during the 34-day conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. His father says it’s just too dangerous. “My father wouldn’t let me inside my bedroom because he suspected some cluster bombs were still under the rubble after he found an unexploded missile in the backyard and cluster bombs in our neighbour’s garden,” Ali told IRIN. He wanted to salvage some of his books and notes, left behind when he and his family fled their home in Kfarkila, 90km south of Beirut and adjacent to the Israel-Lebanon border. They went 20km north-east to Hasbaya, where they stayed with relatives. 

Children strive to overcome trauma of war

28 August 2006


The United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF), together with other NGOs, is setting up children’s activity centres in Nabatiyeh, 80km south of the capital, and in the port city of Tyre, 90km south of Beirut,to recreate a semblance of normalcy for children in Lebanon. Teams of travelling entertainers will be sent out to villages around the towns to organise similar activities. More than a third of the Lebanese killed in the 34-day conflict with Israel were children, according to UNICEF. “The degree to which children have been affected varies from one child to another,” said Ola Attia, a Beirut-based clinical psychiatrist, who does voluntary work with local NGO Samidoun in the south. 

Abducted Fox News journalists freed, Israeli air strike on Reuters vehicle in Gaza

27 August 2006


Reporters Without Borders voiced relief at the release today of Fox News journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig in Gaza City after nearly two weeks in captivity but condemned an Israeli missile attack on a clearly-identified Reuters press vehicle in Gaza that seriously injured a local news website journalist. “The release of the two US network journalists is very good news but the Palestinian authorities must still take concrete measures to protect media workers,” the press freedom organisation said. “As for the journalists targeted today by Israeli aircraft, we call on the Israeli military to carry out a thorough investigation to find out who was responsible.”