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After deadly Gaza shelling, senior UN official urges Israel, Palestinians to return to talks

9 November 2006


The Security Council met in open session today to discuss the latest deadly violence in the Gaza Strip, with a senior United Nations official calling on Israel to review the implications of its military actions, on the Palestinians to take the critically important step of stopping rocket attacks by militants, and on both sides to return to talks. “The incident that occurred in Beit Hanoun on Wednesday is shocking,” Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Angela Kane said. 

Meeting Ahmad on the Burnt Side of the Border

Imad Martada Dayr Seryan, south Lebanon 9 November 2006


I arrived to meet Ahmad after a highly emotionally charged trip through the destroyed villages along the Israel-Lebanese border. We stood there silently sobbing, watching the forbidden land that we consider Palestine as we puffed our cigarettes along with our frustration and helplessness. On one side of the border total destruction, burnt land and graffiti of resistance; and on the other side, green fields and tidily arranged houses protected by the Israeli military. All look serene, rendering the scene all the more brutal and surreal. Borders never looked more ridiculous and painful, a winding barbed wire with fences and military roads marking the separation, cutting through a land that looks very much alike. 

IOF violations continue in Gaza with four Palestinians killed

9 November 2006


Following yesterday’s mass murder in Beit Hanoun, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continued its attacks on Gaza. Four Palestinians have been killed and four others wounded from Israeli fire over the day in the Gaza Strip. The death toll has reached 80 in the north of the Gaza Strip (87 in the whole of the Gaza Strip) since the start of the IOF operations in Gaza on 1 November 2006. At 7.10pm Wednesday, 8 November 2006, IOF killed 32-year-old Rajab Awad and injured one person when an Israeli drone fired a missile at a car in the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City. 

Photostory: Australians protest Apartheid Wall

Sonja Karkar 9 November 2006


As part of the International Week of Action Against the Apartheid Wall, Australians for Palestine took part in a Stop the Wall rally today and contributed an amazing mock wall. The wall was assembled before the rally began and attracted many curious onlookers who soon learned that this wall was only a third of the height of the actual wall being illegally built by Israel in the West Bank. The 3 metre-high wall had been designed and constructed by three Palestinian brothers - Nasser, Moammar and Kamahl Mashni and then re-assembled with the help of Amin Abbas, Joe Lui and Robert Martin. 

Between Resistance and Deception

Jamal Juma 9 November 2006


The Israeli regime unleashes daily racist brutality that by far outstands the crimes of the previous apartheid regime in South Africa. It imprisons an entire people behind ghetto walls, kills them and submits them to an economic blockade that has brought communities to the verge of starvation. Yet, while exactly 30 years ago the UN General Assembly called for comprehensive sanctions against apartheid in South Africa, Palestinians are reminded on a daily basis that the Zionist Occupation can still count on the blindness of the world to its atrocities and crimes. Until when? 

We overcame our fear

Jameela al-Shanti 9 November 2006


Yesterday at dawn, the Israeli air force bombed and destroyed my home. I was the target, but instead the attack killed my sister-in-law, Nahla, a widow with eight children in her care. In the same raid Israel’s artillery shelled a residential district in the town of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, leaving 19 dead and 40 injured, many killed in their beds. One family, the Athamnas, lost 16 members in the massacre: the oldest who died, Fatima, was 70; the youngest, Dima, was one; seven were children. The death toll in Beit Hanoun has passed 90 in one week. This is Israel’s tenth incursion into Beit Hanoun since it announced its withdrawal from Gaza. 

"One Country": An Interview with Ali Abunimah

Christopher Brown 14 December 2006


“Let’s assume that what the Israelis are saying is true and that they are imposing this siege because of the capture of the Israeli soldier. If that is true then they are admitting to the most serious war crimes that can be committed under international law because the Geneva Convention makes it very clear that it is a serious crime to punish a civilian population for political reasons. Here Israel says they are punishing the civilian population in order to secure the release of a prisoner of war. I think that, if nothing else should alert people to the true nature of this regime.” 

The Anatomy of a Beautiful Soul

Raymond Deane 9 November 2006


The highlight of the Rabin Memorial ceremony in Tel Aviv on 4 November last was, by common consent, David Grossman’s speech directed rhetorically to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. This text has already done the rounds of the world’s liberal media, and there is general agreement that it represents Israeli pacifist humanism at its very best. Of Israeli literature’s “three wise men”, Grossman is the one who universally gleans most respect. Amoz Oz’s reputation survives outside Israel primarily because the repentant Germans dutifully worship at his shrine. A. B. Yehoshua put his foot in it once too often when in a Ha’aretz interview he prescribed the use of “full force against the entire population” of Gaza. 

Al-Haq to UN General Assembly: Problems with the Proposed Register of Damage

8 November 2006


Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN, would like to draw the attention of the UN General Assembly to severe shortcomings in the Register of Damage, as proposed in a report of the UN Secretary-General of 17 October 2006, for the Wall that is being illegally constructed by Israel inside the occupied West Bank. Attached you will find a copy of a brief on this issue. Al-Haq believes that the proposed framework for the Register of Damage has not fully taken into account the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on the Wall, and has grave concerns. 

Al-Haq: Call for Action by the European Union Presidency

8 November 2006


As a Palestinian organisation dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights, Al-Haq wishes to express its appreciation of Finland’s recent expression of concern about the worsening humanitarian, economic financial and situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). While grateful for such statements and support, Al-Haq urges Finland to take more concrete steps to bring about an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories and ensure that Israel respect its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law.