News

'It was a set up'

‘It is a shame’, says Ahmad. ‘It is a set up. This is so obvious. Look at what happened in Beitunia, Ramallah, Nablus and now the deal on the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem. Imagine, as the Israeli public openly speaks about transfer, the Palestinian Authority is approving a deal to deport Palestinians. 

With neighbors like these

“They raise their children to hate.” That’s what we’re told about the Palestinians. Watch the TV news. Listen to the radio. Pick up the dramatic US news magazines. Ask the intellectuals and the political pundits. 

Blood and sand in Gaza: Impunity and the murders of children

There is a halo of blood on the ground where Huda died while sleeping last Tuesday night (4/30/02). Toddler-sized diapers lie strewn on the ground among the concrete heaps where the bedroom wall once stood, and a single blue sandal, tiny as my fist, sits perched in a corner of the room on a wooden slab. Huda was 11 months old. 

Teargas, bullets and a cage: Getting to school in Palestine

The breaking points are sometimes small, innocuous. You can’t sleep for a week because the Israeli shelling is so bad, there are continuous and horrible reports of death, but we’re fine- “I’m fine. No, I’m ok. Really.”—- then something as silly as trying to fold an omelette in the frying pan, it breaking, and then- the tears fall. 

Gaza On Departing

The makeshift tank barricade on my street is gone. The twin piles of sand were probably never meant to do much more than provide area residents like myself with some sense of security. 

Letter from Bethlehem

Jara and I play in the neighbour’s garden under the pleasant Mediterranean sun. ‘Do you have everything?’ she asks the neighbour. It is one of those routine questions which people now ask each other and which she has picked up as a normal way of showing concern.