Crossing the Line 13 July 2007
This week on Crossing the Line, host Chris Brown continues to focus on the ongoing crisis in the Palestine refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared located in northern Lebanon. This week Brown speaks with activist Caoimhe Butterly who is in Lebanon working with Palestinians who have been forced from their homes in Nahr al-Bared because of the fighting between the Lebanese Army and militants from Fatah al-Islam. Butterly speaks about an event she witnessed where two Palestinians were killed and 27 injured when the Lebanese Army opened fire on a non-violent protest organized by Nahr al-Bared residents wishing to return to their homes.
Later in the program Ghassan Bannoura from the International Middle East Media Center reports on the announcement from the Egyptian and Israeli governments to allow thousands of Palestinians stranded at the Rafah border crossing to return to their homes in the Gaza Strip. Bannoura also reports on the Palestinian civil servants who have received part of their unpaid salaries as Israel releases part of the withheld tax money to the new Palestinian “emergency government.”
Crossing the Line is a weekly podcast dedicated to giving voice to the voiceless in occupied Palestine. Through investigative news, arts, eyewitness accounts, and music, Crossing the Line does its best to present the lives of people on the ground.
Crossing the Line’s host, Chris Brown, is an independent journalist currently living in San Francisco. Brown’s South African roots and desire for social change are the reason for his strong solidarity with the Palestinian people. In 1990 Brown was arrested in South Africa where he was detained and tortured for nearly two years by the South African secret police. Brown also lived and worked in the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.