8 July 2008
PCHR strongly condemns Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) for closing several charities and humanitarian organizations in Nablus over the past two days. The Centre calls upon the international community to intervene to put an end to these measures. Read more about Israeli army ransacks, shuts down Nablus organizations
8 July 2008
RAMALLAH (IPS) - Ambulances were again prevented Monday from entering the central West Bank village of Ni’ilin, near Ramallah, to evacuate the ill and the wounded. Supplies of medicines were running low, as confrontations continued with youths defying a four-day-old curfew imposed by the Israeli military. Read more about Palestinian village takes on Israeli military
Gaza Strip 7 July 2008
On Monday 30 June, Gaza was abuzz with the sudden announcement that Egypt would open Rafah Crossing — the only gateway for 1.5 million Palestinians who have been imprisoned here for almost two years — for three short days. Haider Eid writes of his attempt to break out of the prison called Gaza. Read more about Shades of Checkpoint Charlie at Rafah Crossing
7 July 2008
On 14 June 2008, a wide coalition of grassroots organizations held a historic event called “Liberation Hip-Hop,” which commemorated the 60th year of the Nakba, the dispossession of the Palestinian people. Speakers and audience members from around the US and across the world got together to link the Palestine and New Orleans struggles and build an alliance against the injustice they all face. Mai Bader reports. Read more about Hip-hop for Palestine represents in New Orleans
San Francisco, United States 9 July 2008
I wasn’t really surprised by the watchdog group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel’s (PHR-I) latest intervention to Israel’s health ministry, in which they accused Israeli doctors of complicity in the torture of Palestinian detainees in Israeli interrogation centers. Indeed, it sounded all too familiar to what I experienced during 550 days of incarceration in a South African prison from 1990 through 1992. Naji Ali writes for EI. Read more about Do no harm: A torture victim remembers
7 July 2008
CAIRO (IPS) - Despite a torrent of mutual recriminations, the fragile truce between Israel and Palestinian resistance faction Hamas survived into its third week. Israel, however, has been slow to fulfill its pledge — as laid down in an Egypt-brokered ceasefire agreement — to allow desperately-needed humanitarian supplies into the outdoor prison that is the Gaza Strip. “Repeated closures of the border crossings [by Israel] … are indicative of Israel’s lack of seriousness regarding the Egyptian ceasefire agreement,” Ismail Haniyeh told reporters Friday on 4 July. Read more about Gaza locked in despite truce
3 July 2008
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights published a new report entitled “Extra-judicial executions … Official, Declared Israeli Policy” covering Israeli extra-judicial executions against Palestinians during the period from 1 August 2006 till 30 June 2008. The report is the ninth of its kind in a special series. Read more about Report: 348 Palestinians extra-judicially executed since Sept. 2000
3 July 2008
Five days into the long awaited Gaza ceasefire, Israel allowed the entry of tissues and sanitary napkins into Gaza as a form of “good will.” Simultaneously, it carried out an early morning raid against a student hostel in Nablus, killing two Palestinians in their beds. Dr. Eyad al-Sarraj comments on what it will take for a permanent lifting of the siege and resisting of Israeli colonial designs. Read more about Unite to negotiate a real truce
Hebron, West Bank 13 July 2008
On 27 June, I took part in one of the regular tours of the West Bank city of Hebron and its settlements organized by the organization Breaking the Silence. Breaking the Silence is a group of Israeli army soldiers and veterans who work to expose the injustice of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Once more, the tour was disrupted because of the settlers. Anne Paq reports from Hebron. Read more about Photostory: Breaking the Silence's tour disrupted
3 July 2008
WASHINGTON (IPS) - Palestinian activist and former university professor Sami al-Arian was arraigned Monday in US federal court on two counts of criminal contempt for his refusal to testify in a grand jury investigation of a Northern Virginia Muslim think-tank. The indictment is the latest episode of a long, Kafka-esque process that has violated nearly every tenet of al-Arian’s plea agreement following the end of his first trial in 2005, and kept al-Arian in prison for over five years. Read more about Critics see vendetta in al-Arian's legal limbo