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Veteran relief official named head of UN agency for Palestinian refugees

28 June 2005


After consulting the members of the Advisory Commission for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Secretary-General Kofi Annan has decided to appoint the Deputy Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Karen AbuZayd, as the new Commissioner-General of the Agency.  Ms. AbuZayd, a national of the United States, succeeds Peter Hansen of Denmark. In August 2000, Ms. AbuZayd was appointed to the post of Deputy Commissioner-General of UNRWA.  On 1 April 2005, she became the Acting Commissioner-General.  From her base in Gaza, she helped to oversee the education, health, social services and microenterprise programmes for 4.1 million Palestinian refugees. 

Israeli soldier convicted for killing Tom Hurndall

28 June 2005


On Monday 27 June 2005 a military court convicted Israeli Sergeant Taysir Wahid of the “manslaughter” of British peace activist and photographer Tom Hurndall. On April 11, 2003, Hurndall was shot in the head and suffered irreversible brain damage, dying from his wound a year later. Wahid was convicted of a total of six charges, including obstructing justice and providing false testimony as well as conduct unbecoming a soldier. A sentencing hearing is to be held on July 5. The court found that Taysir shot Hurndall with a sniper rifle using a telescopic sight, adding that the soldier gave a “confused and even pathetic” version of events. 

Life in Khan Yunis

Laila El-Haddad Khan Younis, Palestine 28 June 2005


It’s interesting to read the news from this perspective. I mean, when you are the news, or when you are living the news that is being reported. On Monday I visited the Khan Yunis refugee camp, the target of many an attack by Israeli forces, to talk to Palestinian refugees there, to hear their thoughts on Israeli disengagement. It was quite an incongruous-and bleak-scene, as is often the case in Gaza. Crumbling refugee homes with pockmarks the size of apples stand like carcasses in front of the Neve Dekalim settlement, part of the Gush settlement bloc. It is shaded with palm trees, red-roofed villas, and the unspoilt pristine sands of the Khan Yunis beach, accessible to all but the Palestinians now. 

Another Wednesday at Kalandia checkpoint

Tami Goldshmidt and Aya Kanyuk Kalandia, Palestine 28 June 2005


Kalandia checkpoint, few vendors. As has been reported, every few hours they go over to the peddlers, and either they beat them or they turn over their carts with all their merchandise, or they both beat them and turn over their carts. Its seems that the favorite sport among soldiers at Kalandia during the last three years, hunting down and shooting at children from the Kalandia refugee camp, has been replaced with the abuse of vendors. Bulldozers, with their protruding teeth, are overturning the earth in the area that is now known as “the Quarry,” and is about to become a veritable Apartheid terminal. 

Kids with machine guns

Zachary Wales Jerusalem, Palestine 27 June 2005


My last contact with Phoebe was in New York City last May, when we met for drinks in Morningside Heights. She is by birth an Israeli citizen, and despite our political differences, we’ve maintained a warm friendship, with the exception of a week-long, I’m-mad-at-you silence here or there. More inevitable is the extent to which our paths cross at graduate school, and now the Middle East. At first I thought about asking her to meet me in predominantly-Arab East Jerusalem, because that would annoy her to no end. But I had turned over a new leaf. Dinner was on her turf. Zachary Wales reports from Palestine. 

A wall as a faultline separating the haves and have-nots

Nick Dearden Palestine 27 June 2005


In April 2005, Nick Dearden travelled around occupied Palestine to witness the effects of over four years of Intifada and thirty years of occupation with the indie Glasgow band Belle & Sebastian. He witnessed the impact of the Wall on Palestinian communities, the expansion of settlements, fenced off Palestinian villages, settlers in Hebron, the dire situation of Bedouin, the effects of house demolitions and he visited the Gaza Strip. “Only when one reaches Rafah - the border line between Palestine and Egypt - does one realize that the violence these people have seen has been an even heavier burden than poverty they suffer.” 

Outrage greets Israeli military chief

Khalid Amayreh 25 June 2005


The appointment of Dan Halutz as the Israeli military’s new Chief of Staff has infuriated many Palestinians who consider the former Commander of the Israeli Air Force a criminal. During his tenure as Air Force Commander between 2000-2004, Halutz approved and oversaw operations that caused the death of many Palestinian civilians, including numerous children. In July 2002, Halutz ordered the Israeli air force to drop a one-tonne bomb on a Gaza apartment complex, killing 14 civilians, including at least 10 children. Halutz took over as the 18th Chief of Staff on Wednesday. 

Israeli land seizures undercut hopes for peace

Abu Murad Manasra 24 June 2005


The realities that Palestinians experience in West Bank villages contradict hopes for peace and instead signal a deepening of Israel’s occupation. The Israeli army recently delivered a seizure order to Wadi Foquin and three neighboring villages about 12 miles southwest of Bethlehem for 189 acres of our land. The army justifies this seizure as necessary to prevent terrorist attacks and to build a security wall. The order has left our small village in crisis, its very existence threatened. Wadi Foquin lost 80 percent of its original land when Israel was established in 1948. Later, the creation of the Israeli settlement of Betar Illit consumed about 175 acres of village land. The army now wants to seize the remaining property. 

Taa'been Kalil Marshood

Chris Smith Nablus, Palestine 24 June 2005


Balata Refugee Camp commemorated the first anniversary of the assassination of Kalil Marshood. Perhaps 5,000 people sat in the hot afternoon sun to watch as bands played, youths performed plays, small girls sang, masked wanted-men saluted, fighters fired in the air and women old enough to be grandmothers danced with guns waived aloft, to a backdrop of rousing music and giant banners. The people had gathered in tribute to the life of a twenty four year old newly-wed known and loved as much for his work for his community, particularly with the children of the camp, as for his membership of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. 

Middle East Quartet urges Israel to ease movement restrictions

23 June 2005


The United Nations-backed diplomatic Quartet seeking peace in the Middle East today called on Israel to take immediate steps to relieve economic hardships facing the Palestinians and on the Palestinians to fight violence and terrorism ahead of Israel’s planned withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip. They urged Israel “to take immediate steps, without endangering Israeli security, to relieve the economic hardships faced by the Palestinian people and to facilitate rehabilitation and reconstruction by easing the flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza and the West Bank and between them.”