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Stop using Rafah Crossing to pressure Gaza civilians

30 August 2006


On 30 August 2006, B’Tselem wrote to the Defense Minister, Amir Peretz, and informed him there was reason to believe that the security establishment has been using the Rafah crossing to put pressure on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The organization demanded that the minister order the IDF to cease its illegal policy. B’Tselem’s action followed publication of the minutes of a meeting held in the Ministry of Defense relating to the Gaza crossings, as reported in Ha’aretz. According to the report, the IDF’s Planning Division argued that the crossing “should be opened on occasion only after the kidnapped soldier is released and the shooting from the Gaza Strip stops. (To use the crossing as a means of applying pressure).” 

Israel must disclose details of cluster bomb attacks and accept a full investigation

31 August 2006


Amnesty International today called on Israel to immediately provide maps of the areas of Lebanon into which it fired cluster bombs during the recent conflict to enable their clearance and prevent further civilian casualties. Publishing new accounts from the victims of unexploded cluster bombs, the organization also called on Israel to cooperate in a full and impartial investigation into their use of such munitions during the recent conflict. The calls followed a report from the United Nations that 90 percent of Israeli cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict when a ceasefire was in sight. 

Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism

31 August 2006


August 22 - Christian Zionism is a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel. The Christian Zionist programme provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it places an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ’s love and justice today. 

Strikes paralyse Palestinian health sector

31 August 2006


In a serious escalation of an ongoing health crisis in the West Bank and Gaza, health sector workers went on strike on Tuesday in protest of unpaid wages. “The strike is paralysing all primary health care centres that provide maternal and child health services,” said Usama Al Najjar, head of the Health Professions Union. “And all kinds of children’s vaccinations have completely stopped.” Al Najjar said that if the strike goes on for long, some 300,000 children under the age of three who receive regular vaccinations will suffer. Government health workers, who number 13,000 in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), have been unpaid for the past six months, said Al Najjar. 

Australian Foreign Minister misses the 'hole truth' on hoax claim

Stephen Smith 31 August 2006


According to Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, Hezbollah and its supporters in Lebanon are duping the world’s media. The media, he cautions, are a guilty party to the faking of IDF air strikes on civilians and rescue workers. Downer, however, has been caught out by his own gullibility. It is worrying that he did not first check his source - an unattributed blog site - or realise the callous intent of its material. More worrying is his political opportunism in contesting one photograph and thereby casting doubt on what might be depicted in other images that document the atrocities of war. 

Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

31 August 2006


During the reported period, IOF killed 28 Palestinians, including 3 children, a mentally disabled young man and an old man. In addition, a man and a woman died from previous wounded. In the Gaza Strip, IOF killed 23 Palestinians, including 11 civilians. These civilians included 3 children and a mentally disabled young man. Twenty of the victims, including the three children, were killed by IOF during a 4-day offensive on al-Shojaeya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. Two of the victims are from the Abu al-Qumboz family, and were killed while they were inside their houses. 

The damage against civilians

Paul Larudee Beirut 29 August 2006


“You’re just a kid,” scoffed nonogenarian Ahmed Yehya al-Hajj when I told him I was sixty years old. “I have sons older than you and a grandson over fifty.” Ahmed is fortunate to be alive, and not just because of his age. He was visitiing one of his many offspring in the village of Houla when the house was struck by an Israeli missile. First reports were that as many as sixty people may have died, but in fact there was only one fatality and several very serious injuries, some permanent. Still bad enough, for those affected. The survivors showed me the remnants of the missile. They also shared the remnants of their hopes and dreams. 

Electricity in Gaza: Another Victim of Israeli 'Summer Rains'

Rami Almeghari Gaza Strip 31 August 2006


As I walked into one of the largest food processing plants in the central Gaza Strip, the first thing I noticed were two workers sitting idle in the ice-cream production area of the plant. I arrived during working hours, but all the machines were completely stopped. The factory was silent, the silence was overwhelming. The workers, Ibrahim and Hassan, were sitting idle in a corner - not because there is no desire in Gaza for ice cream, but because the Al-Awda factory, for which both workers work, is no longer able to produce ice cream, due to the electricity outages in the Gaza Strip. 

Israel's deceptions as a way of life

Jonathan Cook 31 August 2006


In a state established on a founding myth — that the native Palestinian population left of their own accord rather than that they were ethnically cleansed — and in one that seeks its legitimacy through a host of other lies, such as that the occupation of the West Bank is benign and that Gaza’s has ended, deception becomes a political way of life. And so it is in the “relative calm” that has followed Israel’s month-long pounding of Lebanon, a calm in which Israelis may no longer be dying but the Lebanese most assuredly are as explosions of US-made cluster bombs greet the south’s returning refugees and the anonymous residents of Gaza perish by the dozens each and every week under the relentless and indiscriminate strikes of the Israeli air force while the rest slowly starve in their open-air prison. 

Economic recession looms

30 August 2006


The Lebanese economy could go into recession in 2006 because of the damage done by the recent Israeli offensive and its ongoing air and naval blockade of the country, Lebanon’s Finance Minister Jihad Azour has warned. Azour added, however, that there could be a quick economic turn-around should current circumstances improve. “Yes, there is a risk of negative growth but there is also a chance of a recovery in growth if the blockade is lifted quickly,” he said. However, hopes for an immediate lifting of the blockade were dashed on Wednesday when Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rebuffed United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s calls for an end to what he described as a “humiliating” blockade.