RAMALLAH, 6 November (IPS) - After packing the ambulance with medical equipment and bags full of medicine, Dr. Jameel Mashny, Dr. Rami Habash and their nurse, Maysa Youseff, all from the Palestine Medical Relief Society (PMRS), prepare themselves for the long day ahead. If it is business as usual, it will be a day of organized chaos. Screaming children will hide behind their mothers, elderly men will complain that they do not like the taste of their medicine — and a poor village will get desperately needed medical relief. Read more about West Bankers get some medical care
UNITEDNATIONS, Oct 15 (IPS) - The United Nations has come under strong criticism from one of its own top human rights officials for failing to take effective action to check the ongoing Israeli abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories. Expressing his anger and frustration at the fast-deteriorating human rights situation in Gaza and the West Bank, John Dugard, the UN special rapporteur on human rights for the Palestinian territories since 2001, has suggested that the world body quit the Middle East Quartet. Read more about Another Mideast envoy fed up with quartet
DAMASCUS, 10 October (IRIN) - Most of the over 300 Palestinian-Iraqi refugees stranded for the past 18 months at the makeshift al-Tanf refugee camp on the Syrian side of the Iraq-Syria border have rejected an offer of asylum in Sudan. The Sudanese government made an offer 8 October to take in the 310 Palestinian refugees, who are living in pitiful conditions at the camp. “The [Sudanese] president agreed to the request of both Hamas and Fatah to accommodate them and we are going to inform the Arab League and then make our preparations,” said a Sudanese Foreign Ministry official. Read more about Stranded Palestinians turn down Sudanese asylum offer
BRUSSELS, Oct 10 (IPS) - Representatives of the European Union’s two most powerful institutions remained silent this week on new efforts by Israel to expropriate Palestinian villages, triggering accusations that the bloc’s Middle East policy suffers from double standards. During a 10 October debate in Brussels, speakers from the Portuguese government, which holds the Union’s rotating presidency, and the European Commission did not refer directly to the Israeli order to seize control of four Arab villages located between East Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Jericho. Read more about EU quiet over Israeli land expropriation
JERUSALEM, 3 October (IRIN) - The UN has expressed renewed concern over the state of the Gaza Strip’s border crossings, saying that, if realized, the Israeli threat of increased restrictions would most likely lead to a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished enclave. “In the last three months, the arrival of 106 truckloads of supplies per working day has ensured that there has not been a humanitarian crisis among the Gazan population. This could not be guaranteed with increased restrictions on the border crossings,” a recent statement by UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. Read more about "The noose is tightening around Gaza"
Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani24 September 2007
CAIRO, 24 September (IPS) - The border crisis that had appeared to subside last month is back, with an estimated 2,000 Palestinians marooned on Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip. A new security arrangement between Cairo, Tel Aviv and the Palestinian Authority (PA) has effectively sealed the last sovereign transit point in or out of the troubled territory, which has been governed by Palestinian resistance faction Hamas since mid-June. Read more about Border impasse arises again
WASHINGTON, 21 September (IPS) - This past summer, President George W. Bush extended a hand where he never has before, calling for a Middle East conference to find a solution to the long-moribund Palestinian-Israeli peace process. This time, says US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, her boss expects results. Yet as with most of Washington’s diplomatic overtures to the region over the last seven years, Bush’s recent demands for a “viable Palestinian state” — which critics argue simply aim to spit-shine an already tarnished presidential legacy — may crumble under the weight of stark realities on the ground. Read more about Bush peace confab a swan dive or belly flop?
BRUSSELS, Sep 1 (IPS) - Trade between the European Union and Israel should be halted in protest at human rights violations in the Palestinian territories, a United Nations conference has heard. Under a so-called association agreement, Israel currently enjoys free trade in industrial goods, and preferential treatment of farm produce entering the European Union. Luisa Morgantini, a vice-president of the European Parliament, said that her institution has called for this agreement to be suspended. Read more about Call to halt EU trade with Israel
Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani29 August 2007
CAIRO, 27 August (IPS) - Since the Gaza Strip was taken over by Palestinian resistance faction Hamas in June, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has twice appealed for the deployment of an “international force” to the troubled territory. But with international contingents already deployed in hotspots from Lebanon to Afghanistan, some observers see the trend as a challenge to principles of national sovereignty. “The phenomenon represents a return of the region to the foreign colonialism of days past, albeit in a new, internationalized form,” Abdel-Halim Kandil, political analyst and former editor-in-chief of opposition weekly al-Karama told IPS. Read more about Not another international force
JERUSALEM, 21 August 2007 (IRIN) - If power and fuel shortages continue, a major sewage treatment plant in the Gaza Strip will be unable to operate, causing public health risks, a water and sanitation official said. “Without electricity, we will face a real environmental and humanitarian disaster,” said Munzer Shublak, the head of Coastal Municipalities Water Utilities. He raised concerns that sewage would either end up flowing onto the streets or there might be another overflow of the plant, as occurred in April. Read more about Power shortages threaten sewage treatment
