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"They may accept us for a day or two but for how long?"

Rania Masri and Jackson Allers Baddawi Refugee Camp 25 May 2007


“We left yesterday. What can I say? The fighting wasn’t against Fateh al-Islam. The fighting was against our homes. Our homes were destroyed. If you were to go inside the camp, and see the camp for yourself, you would say the same. No homes [are] left. The homes on the extremity of the camp have all been destroyed. People left the extremity of the camp and went into the center of the camp, and the bombing followed them. We, in the center of the camp, received two bombs on our home. Our son was hit.” Rania Masri and Jackson Allers interview those who fled the siege on Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. 

Nahr al-Bared Flees to Beirut

Marcy Newman 26 May 2007


As we walked in to Shatila refugee camp in Beirut this morning we were approached by a family from Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Tripoli who was wandering the streets of the camp in search of a place to live. They fled the violence in their camp and made it to Beirut to seek shelter. This family is one of 100 families who are now residing in Palestinian homes inside Shatila camp, with around 30 people to each two-room flat on top of the already family living in these homes and some of these homes have no electricity. 

Israeli Attorney General supports persecution of Palestinian citizens

26 May 2007


On 20 May 2007, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz responded to a letter sent by Adalah on 22 March 2007 demanding the initiation of a criminal investigation into the General Security Services’ (GSS) interference in the issue of political and legal documents recently published by Arab NGOs and academics in Israel. According to the GSS, as noted in a letter dated 15 March 2007, “The Shin Bet (GSS) is required to thwart the subversive activity of entities seeking to harm the character of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, even if their activity is conducted through democratic means.” 

Aid for Nahr al-Bared

25 May 2007


The road to Nahr al-Bared was a difficult one. For those who traveled on busses to Badawi camp they found their children taken off and assassinated by this militia group. For others they found themselves cramped into a refugee camp far smaller than their own and the new arrivals doubled the population of Badawi camp which previously held 18,000. The upsurge in population happened so suddenly that aid agencies have not had time to coordinate aid relief distribution. 

Cheering to the beat of the Palestinians' misery

Sami Hermez 25 May 2007


“In the first three days of the recent events involving the Lebanese army and Fateh el-Islam in the Nahr el-Bared camp, the Lebanese army committed what would amount to war crimes in a similar fashion to that of the Israeli army in Gaza and in Lebanon last summer, firing on a civilian population indiscriminately. When the Israelis do this, we scream at the injustice, but when the Lebanese army does it we applaud them. These are double standards.” Sami Hermez analyzes the Lebanese support for the siege of Nahr al-Bared camp for Electronic Lebanon. 

DC Metro Ads are Racist and Islamaphobic

24 May 2007


StandWithUs and AMCHA-The Coalition for Jewish Concerns have placed ads in stations of the DC metropolitan area metro/subway system (WMATA) in response to ads by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and United for Peace and Justice for the June 10 Mobilization Against Israeli Occupation. Contrary to their sponsors’ claims, nothing on these ads responds to the main issues raised by the June 10 demonstration ads… 

B'Tselem calls for criminal investigation into Gaza bombing

24 May 2007


In an attack in the Sheja’iyeh neighborhood in Gaza on 20 May, the Israeli air force killed eight persons. Seven of them were members of the al-Haya family, relatives of Khalil al-Haya, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The dead included three minors, aged sixteen and seventeen, and two men, aged fifty-six and sixty-four. Another four people were injured in the attack, two of them severely. The other two suffered light wounds and were discharged from the hospital. 

Interview: As'ad Abukhalil on the Nahr al-Bared siege

Ali Abunimah 24 May 2007


Thousands of Palestinian refugees are fleeing from Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon as five days of fighting by the Lebanese army and a militant group known as Fath al-Islam has left dozens of soldiers and fighters and an unknown number of civilians dead. As the situation of these Palestinian refugees worsens, 59 years after they were first expelled from their homeland into Lebanon, the world looks on in silence. Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah spoke with As’ad Abukhalil, the creator of the Angry Arab News Service blog on the origins of Fath al-Islam, the events that led to the violence and what it means for Lebanon and the region. 

"On the way to the hospital I realised that my mother had died"

24 May 2007


NAHR AL-BARED, 24 May 2007 (IRIN) - Yousef Abu Radi, 12, was hit by shrapnel when a civilian bus fleeing Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon, came under fire on Wednesday afternoon. Dozens of civilians have been killed in five days of fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam, a radical Islamist group based in the camp. At least 50 soldiers and militants have also been killed. 

30,000 Caught in Crossfire

Jackson Allers 24 May 2007


BEIRUT, May 24 (IPS) - Palestinian factions inside Lebanon have been in a quandary as to how to assist the more than 30,000 residents of the densely populated Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon trapped after three days of fighting between Lebanese Army units and members of a Sunni Islamist group, Fatah al-Islam. Ashraf Abu-Khorj, a camp resident, spoke to IPS in the middle of the shelling on the second day of fighting. Khorj said that the situation was growing increasingly dire, as he and his neighbours felt that no one was acting to put an end to the situation peacefully.