The wheel chairs took place at the front line. Wheel chairs carrying previously butchered victims of the Israeli brutality in the long occupation years. Angry protestors strolled along trying to control their anger by shouting loudly and screaming revenge at the continuing Israeli aggressions against Palestinians. The victim this time is Nazih Darwazeh. A cameraman working with Palestine TV and freelancing for Associated Press. Read more about Attempting to murder the truth
International Womens Peace ServiceMas'ha, Palestine7 April 2003
If you’ve ever sat in springtime in an olive grove, enjoying the shade of the trees and the scent of the fresh earth, perhaps you will understand what land can mean to people who depend on it. Go just once to Mas’ha, Bidya, Sanniria or one of the dozens of Palestinian villages that are losing most of their land to the Israeli Apartheid Wall and you will get an idea of what kind of pain Palestinians feel at this theft and destruction. Read more about What about the apartheid wall?
Between walking among the lands in Qalqiliya, which Israel is confiscating for the so-called ‘security barrier’, and visiting the hospital where Jihad, a fourteen year-old martyr who was shot by Israeli ‘special forces’, was prepared for his funeral, one can easily understand why the residents of this caged city state there is an internal closure on their spirits. Robyn Long writes from Occupied Jerusalem. Read more about Israel threatens Palestinan land and homes in Qalqiliya
“They had to do 16 houses by sundown, and they couldn’t start until the men who live in them had gone off to work in the morning. But those machines are tireless, and by the end of the day, you could find 16 families sitting on heaps of rubble, weeping and cursing. Children, too.” Gila Svirsky of the Coalition of Women for Peace reports on another average day in Occupied Palestine. Read more about Another busy day for IDF bulldozers
Kathleen and Bill ChristisonEast Jerusalem5 April 2003
“As we left East Jerusalem for Amman last week, on our way back home, we were struck by the cynicism of what appeared to be a concerted effort by the Israeli press and others in the media to justify, retrospectively, Israel’s siege and destruction of Jenin a year ago because it is now clear that U.S. and British forces are doing the same thing in Iraq.” Kathleen and Bill Christison reflect on their trip from Occupied East Jerusalem. Read more about Final thoughts from Palestine
My friend’s shop is in the old city. Because there is curfew everyday, he has been unable to get there. Recently, his shop, along with nineteen others, was welded shut by the Israeli army. Read more about The Shopkeeper
“Early last evening I was on the phone to a friend in the US, when gunfire erupted nearby. It was loud enough that my friend on the other end of the line could hear it. A few seconds later another loud round went off. Moments later I could hear the sound of an ambulance approaching.” Rev. Sandra Olewine writes from Bethlehem. Read more about As war rages to the east of us, we continue to bury the dead here
At 3am the Israeli military invaded the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun with Apache helicopters and tanks. The bulldozers demolished 100s of trees, further desecrating the land. If one were not watching this happen, it might be easy to arrive here next year and truly believe that this was a land without a people. The Israeli military has destroyed thousands of dunams of orange and olive trees, shrubs, grass, and life. The US donated helicopters fired missiles into the Beit Hanoun Palestinian National Security building, killing two men who were at work. Kristen Ess writes from Gaza. Read more about Myriad forms of ethnic cleansing
Living under the Israeli occupation has led one Palestinian women to a life of fear and depression. As Israeli troops continue to make it impossible for her to live a normal life, she summons the courage to write a letter to her friends in Vermont. Reema Abu Hamdieh writes from Ramallah. Read more about 'I just want a moment of peace'
Our arrival at Yasser Arafat’s headquarters was fairly dramatic, or at least it gave us, accustomed as we are to nothing more exciting than quietly writing at a computer in our comfortable home, a keen sense of the drama of the occasion. The meeting had been arranged from Amman, without our asking, by the friend of friends of ours, a Palestinian in Amman who had known Arafat for years and set up the meeting through one of Arafat’s advisers. Kathleen and Bill Christison write from Ramallah. Read more about A new Sykes-Picot Agreement: Yasser Arafat discusses the future
