On the afternoon of Friday 9 May 2008, five young Palestinian men and a 13-year-old boy set out to hunt birds in the hills of Deir Dibwan village, east of Ramallah city. Upon their arrival to the hills, they noticed a group of people, including young children, on an opposite hill, approximately 150 meters away. Based on testimony Al-Haq collected from the Palestinian men, they initially thought that this group was also Palestinian, and paid little attention to them. Read more about Israeli settler kills Palestinian civilian near Ramallah
“I am not sure what year I was born. But it was around 78 years ago, in Palestine.” Handuma Rashid Najja Wishah sits on the patio overlooking her large garden, recalling the turbulent story of her long life. “I am a Palestinian from the village of Beit Affa” she says, tucking her long white scarf under her chin. “It was a beautiful village and we had a good life there. There was a small Jewish settlement nearby, called Negba, and we had a good relationship with the Jews. Read more about Remembering the Nakba, 60 years later
GAZACITY, 14 May (IPS) - The Israeli siege of Gaza that has restricted access to food, water and medicine is now beginning to hit unborn children and newborn babies. “Many babies are born suffering from anaemia that they have inherited from their mothers,” Dr Salah al-Rantisi, head of the women’s health department at the Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza told IPS. And the mothers are becoming anemic because they do not now get enough nutrition through pregnancy. Read more about Siege hits Palestinians before they are born
As the grueling Gaza fuel crisis continues, so does the strain on local public transport services, including ambulances, across the Gaza Strip. Approximately 15 percent of local public services are operating across Gaza, whilst up to 90 percent of private cars remain off the roads, and all of Gaza’s 450 fuel stations remain closed. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights speaks with medial professionals working under siege. Read more about Gaza lives being put at risk
A new report from Arab Association for Human Rights documents the danger of eviction facing the Palestinian residents of the Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa and reveals the true motives behind this process. For these residents, ethnic cleansing did not end in 1948. It continues to this day, albeit by different means. The process being implemented in Jaffa (and in other locations in Israel) amounts to the “quiet transfer” of the Palestinian residents. Read more about Report: Ethnic cleansing continues in Jaffa
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the killing of a mother in front of her children yesterday, during an Israeli incursion into New Abasan town, east of Khan Younes. PCHR investigations indicate that at approximately 14:30pm on Wednesday, 7 May, Israeli Occupation Forces troops raided the house of Majdi Abd al-Raziq al-Daghma during an incursion into New Abasan. Read more about Israeli forces kill Gaza mother in front of her children
JERUSALEM/GAZA, 6 May (IRIN) - Intense political divisions in the Gaza Strip have split people on most issues, except one: the situation has never been worse, nearly everyone agrees. “I never remember Gaza being this bad,” said one man in his early 40s. “Living here has become a game of survival.” With fuel supplies nearly dry, many people no longer have cooking gas in their homes, leading some to search for alternative methods to make a meal. Read more about Gaza improvises under siege
According to Al Mezan’s statistics, 69 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) in the Gaza Strip since the start of April 2008. Of them, 20 were children and one was a woman. This brings the toll of Gazans killed by the IOF since the beginning of 2008 to 316, including 62 children and 16 women. Read more about Gaza death toll, humanitarian crisis escalates
AQABA, WESTBANK, 4 May (IRIN) - At the entrance to the small village, laborers continued to work on a cement divider, creating two lanes to make the road safer, while in a side room next to the village kindergarten, Haj Sami Sadiq, the head of the local council, carried on sorting out agricultural development projects for his residents. Sadiq pretends it is “business as usual,” but he knows that at any moment Israeli troops can arrive and begin demolishing most of the village’s structures and even some of the streets. Read more about West Bank village faces slow death
Mohammed al-Hurani, a 33-year-old resident of Gaza, died 30 April 2008 of cancer while waiting for a reply from the Israel General Security Service to a request from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. Although al-Hurani was in a grave condition, confined to a bed in hospital, the GSS demanded that the patient come for security questioning at Erez Crossing on 27 April. Read more about Gaza resident dies awaiting permission for cancer treatment
