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San Francisco Queers Say No Pride in Apartheid

29 May 2007


In March, over 100 members of the LGBT/queer community sent the following letter to Frameline, organizer of the San Francisco International Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Trans Film Festival, which according to its website is the largest LGBT cultural event in the world. The letter asks Frameline to honor calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate. 

"The end of the world is something to do with my father"

Areen Bahour Ramallah 31 May 2007


Areen Bahour is a seventh-grade student at Friends School in al-Bireh, Ramallah. The following is an essay she wrote as a class assignment: “Thinking about the end of the world is hard. I’m still 12 years old and I didn’t face the world yet so I can’t imagine the end of the world that I didn’t face yet! Well, now for me as a girl that her life is between school, home and activities I can’t think of anything except for my family. I love every member of my family, but the end of the world is something to do with my father.” 

Seventy-two hours

Marcy Newman 28 May 2007


Today the Lebanese army gave the PLO 72 hours to take out Fatah al-Islam or else the violence will be escalated in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. It is not clear if this means that they will enter or if they will use heavier artillery, but I fear that they will raze the camp. This would not be the first time that it has happened. The Dbeyeh refugee camp was destroyed in 1976 during the Civil War in Lebanon when most of the Palestinian refugees living there were killed or forced out. The shelling in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp has resumed yet again; more Palestinians are trapped inside and many of them seem to be men. 

Reporting from the front: Interviews with PLO spokesman in Lebanon and PFLP official (Part 1)

Jackson Allers and Rasha Moumneh Baddawi Refugee Camp 28 May 2007


“We were supportive of the Lebanese army because an illegitimate group was imposed on Nahr al-Bared and on the Lebanese sphere. It attacked the Lebanese army, which led to the murder of 30 soldiers. This necessitated a stand next to the Lebanese army because the honor of the Palestinian people is intertwined with that of the Lebanese.” Jackson Allers and Rasha Moumneh interview Hajj Rif’at, Director of Media for Fatah and the spokesperson for the PLO in Lebanon in the first of a two-part series. 

Reporting from the front: Interviews with PLO spokesman in Lebanon and PFLP official (Part 2)

Jackson Allers and Rasha Moumneh Baddawi Refugee Camp 28 May 2007


“Honestly, the first day there was sympathy for the soldiers that were killed. But after the shelling started we felt that the targets were not Fatah al-Islam, but rather the Nahr al-Bared camp. … At the end of the day, there is a people that is being shelled and people are dying.” Jackson Allers and Rasha Moumneh interview PFLP official and Treasurer of the Committee for the Festival of Right of Return in the second of a two-part series. 

"Another Waco in the Making"

Franklin Lamb Baddawi Refugee Camp 28 May 2007


26 May 2007 — Bedawi is teeming with new arrivals from Nahr al-Bared where there is still no water, power or food. A few NGOs are still negotiating with the army for permission to enter. (Still possible to sneak in from the east but getting more dangerous to try it.) The problem is not being shot by Fatah al-Islam anymore. They are digging in. And the army is not as trigger happy as it was Monday through Wednesday. The “security agents” on the slopes above the army looking down into al-Bared are the main sniper danger. 

Nahr al-Bared is a ghost town, smelling of death

28 May 2007


BEIRUT, 28 May 2007 (IRIN) - Heavy overnight bombardment on Friday of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp by the Lebanese army killed at least four civilians and injured dozens, with eye-witnesses describing scenes of devastation after the military’s week-long clashes with Islamist militants in the once densely populated camp. “Nahr al-Bared looks like Leningrad,” Bilal Aslan, a commander in the military wing of the secular Palestinian faction Fatah, who has spent the week inside the camp, told IRIN, referring to the German World War II siege of the Russian city. 

Chronic disease sufferers in refugee camps urgently need medication

28 May 2007


BEIRUT, 28 May 2007 (IRIN) - Thousands of elderly and sick refugees in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp and neighbouring Badawi camp in northern Lebanon are in urgent need of chronic disease medication currently unavailable to aid agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told IRIN. ICRC representatives at the military checkpoint to the south of the camp say thousands of people are in need of treatment for chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney failure. 

Israeli strike on Jabalya camp damages civilian property; human rights offices

28 May 2007


At approximately 23:00 on Saturday, 26 May 2007, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a security room belonging to the Executive Force of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior near Timraz fuel station in the center of the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. The missile hit the room from the south and penetrated its roof. It then hit the ground causing heavy damage to PCHR’s branch office in Jabalya, nearly 40 meters away, and to dozens of houses and shops. 

IOF offensive continues; 47 Killed and 189 wounded in Gaza

27 May 2007


The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continued its offensive on Gaza which started on 15 May 2007. Air strikes against Executive Force targets and other civilian facilities have been focused on Gaza City and occurred with more intensity at the late night hours. Al Mezan has documented that 47 Palestinians have been killed and 189 others injured since the start of the offensive. Dozens of homes have been destroyed or damaged from the 58 air strikes and 19 artillery and heavy machine gun attacks on different locations around the Gaza Strip.