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Médecins Sans Frontières asks for access to its patients in Gaza

9 October 2004


Since the beginning of this operation, Médecins Sans Frontières has received numerous calls asking for help to secure food, water and medicines for people blocked in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia. In these zones, which remain isolated from the rest of Gaza, all movements have been impossible since September, 28. For the past eight days, MSF teams, who have both the capacity to treat and to provide food supplies for the families they are supporting, are unable to do so, for lack of authorization by the Israeli Defense Forces. Once again, MSF asks for access to its patients in the Gaza Strip. 

Gaza Daily Update, 7.00 PM

9 October 2004


Since the wide-scale Israeli military assault on the northern part of the Gaza Strip, 107 Palestinians have been killed, including 29 children and 16 Palestinians in other parts of Gaza. At least 340 Palestinians, including 120 children were injured. Numerous homes and private property have also been destroyed as IOF utilize air force and heavy tanks in this military operation. In addition, as the incursion continues, the civilian population of the area suffer shortage in food and water supply. In the areas which IOF occupy civilians lack the most basic needs. Al Mezan is still receiving plights from people who have been in urgent need for medicine and water. 

Assassination in Khan Yunis, death toll Israeli raid northern Gaza rises to 83

9 October 2004


Israeli occupying troops committed an extra-judicial execution in Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinians. This latest attack, which was the fourth of its kind in the Gaza Strip in one week, came in the context of an unprecedented level of escalation of attacks by Israeli occupying troops against Palestinian civilians and their property, especially in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli occupying troops have continued their wide scale offensive on the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces have killed so far at least 83 Palestinians, including 25 children, and wounding at least 300 others, including nearly 110 children. 

The ICG report on Hamas: a shallow approach to a complex issue

Hasan Abu Nimah 10 February 2004


The prestigious International Crisis Group (ICG) has published a report entitled “Dealing with Hamas.” EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah reviewed it hoping to find an original and independent approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead, he finds little more than repetition of clichés and shallow recommendations based on an analysis that does not scratch the surface of misguided conventional widsom. One of its flaws is evident in its title - its authors seem to accept and endorse the widely-held view that had it not been for Hamas and suicide bombings, the region would be much closer to peace and security. This assumption has the attraction of being simple, and politically uncontroversial in the west, but it is also wrong. 

Palestinian UN observer sends letter to Kofi Annan and Security Council

6 October 2004


Nasser Al Kidwa, the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations addressed identical letters to Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the Security Council. In his letter he referred to the Israeli raid of northern Gaza. “The bloodletting in the Occupied Palestinian Territory persists as Israel, the occupying Power, continues to commit war crimes, State terrorism and systematic human rights violations against the Palestinian people. In absolute disregard for the international outcry and in grave breach of international law, the occupying Power continues to order its forces to launch violent military attacks against the Palestinian population in the Northern Gaza Strip area.” 

Gaza Daily Update, 7.00 PM

8 October 2004


Since the wide-scale Israeli military assault on the northern part of the Gaza Strip, 101 Palestinians have been killed, including 32 children and 12 Palestinians in other parts of Gaza. At least 322 Palestinians, including 111 children were injured. Numerous homes and private property have also been destroyed as IOF utilize air force and heavy tanks in this military operation. In addition, as the incursion continues, the civilian population of the area suffer shortage in food and water supply. In the areas which IOF occupy civilians lack the most basic needs. Al Mezan is still receiving plights from people who have been in urgent need for medicine and water. 

Aid agency calls for effective international intervention in Gaza

8 October 2004


In a situation of ongoing violence and the sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation, civilians are now paying the highest price in growing numbers because of the escalating violence in Gaza, according to aid agency Oxfam International. Oxfam believes that civilians caught up in armed conflict have every right to be protected, as enshrined in the Geneva Conventions. Oxfam’s Regional Manager for the Middle East, Adam Leach, says: “Protecting civilians should not be a by-product of a political process but intrinsic to it. Their protection could strengthen the political process, safeguard civil society and reverse the decline in the security situation.” 

Breaking the impasse

Am Johal Canada 8 October 2004


The left is dead in Israel. And if you hold to the observation that social change related to human rights in Israel will be initiated by the left, this is a worrisome trend. In the land of home demolitions, military assassinations, movement restrictions, settlement construction, religious and secular strife, collective punishment, military incursions and legal and socio-economic discrimination, and all the psychological and physical damage associated with the Occupation there is a growing chorus of those who believe that the situation will deteriorate before it gets better. Am Johal shows the failure of leadership at every level in this conflict. 

Culture and dissent: Khalil Sakakini Center looks towards creative resistance

Am Johal 12 October 2004


Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center Director Adila Laidi explains that the role of culture evolves over time and raises to the public questions like the normalcy of the Israeli Occupation. If Edward Said and Noam Chomsky argue that the role of the intellectual is to speak truth to power and Bill Moyers says the same of journalism, then what Laidi is arguing is much the same for art and culture in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Laidi says that since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, there has been no normal life. And that as the role of art and culture develop as a means of expression in the context of the Occupation and the current intifada, the Sakakini Cultural Center has a duty to reach beyond the middle, educated classes. 

Gaza under Attack: Is this disengagement?

4 October 2004


At the beginning of 2004, Israeli forces were making Palestinian refugees homeless in southern Gaza on the border with Egypt. Now they’re doing the same in Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government has a plan for “disengaging” from Gaza but has in fact brought additional troops and equipment into Gaza in the past week. Some 60 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians including children, more than 200 have been injured, homes have been destroyed and businesses and farms have been damaged in the past week in and around Jabalia.