News

The Palestinian Bar Mitzvah

Bassam Aramin East Jerusalem 21 July 2008


My son Arab is 14, just past the age that his Jewish Israeli peers are celebrating their Bar Mitzvahs. This ceremony in Jewish culture is a rite of passage that marks a boy’s entrance into the realities and responsibilities of adulthood. And last week, my son experienced something akin to the Palestinian Bar Mitzvah. Bassam Aramin writes from occupied Jerusalem. 

Celebrities urged to cut ties to settlement financier

Omid Memarian 15 July 2008


UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - Having successfully lobbied the UN Children’s Agency UNICEF to stop accepting donations from Israeli billionaire Lev Avnerovich Leviev, activists are urging celebrities who have made public appearances with Leviev to cut all ties with him. Leviev is the chairman of Africa Israel Investments, a global conglomerate that has been criticized by a variety of non-governmental organizations for its involvement in building settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

Israel targets Hamas orphanages

Peter Hirschberg 15 July 2008


JERUSALEM (IPS) - Shopping malls. Schools. Medical centers. Charities, orphanages. Soup kitchens. These are the latest targets in the campaign the Israeli military is waging against Hamas in the West Bank. Israeli military officials have identified Hamas’s civilian infrastructure in the West Bank as a major source of the Islamic group’s popularity, and have begun raiding and shutting down these institutions in cities like Hebron, Nablus and Qalqiliya. 

Hamas-Israel prisoner swap remains elusive

Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani 15 July 2008


CAIRO, (IPS) - Despite intensive mediation efforts by Egyptian officials, a delegation from Palestinian resistance faction Hamas departed Cairo Saturday without securing a prisoner exchange deal with Israel. According to local analysts, fresh swap proposals — featuring the release of long-time Israeli captive Gilad Shalit — continue to run up against Israeli obduracy. 

A family under siege

Philip Rizk Gaza Strip 16 July 2008


At the end of my visit they started asking me to take pictures for their brothers, uncles, sons and fathers detained in Israeli prisons for over four months — a picture of a newborn not yet seen by the imprisoned father, one father’s favorite girl and a picture of the detainees’ pictures hanging on the wall to let the prisoners know they are missed, they are celebrated. Philip Rizk writes from the occupied Gaza Strip. 

"I do not struggle alone"

Dina Awad and Hazem Jamjoum Ramallah, West Bank 15 July 2008


Ibrahim Bornat, 25, from the village of Bil’in in the occupied West Bank, was shot three times in the right thigh with dum-dum bullets by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on 13 June 2008. Like he does every week, Ibrahim was protesting against the construction of the separation wall in his village, which will effectively result in the annexation of 58 percent of the lands by Israel. Dina Awad and Hazem Jamjoum write from occupied Ramallah. 

Tel Aviv conference organizes around the right of return

Nora Barrows-Friedman 14 July 2008


Late last month a conference on the Implementation of the Palestinian right of return was organized by the Israeli human rights organization Zochrot (Hebrew for “The Remembering”). Zochrot is an anti-Zionist, pro-justice group that works diligently to raise awareness within Israeli Jewish society about the Palestinian Nakba, “ground zero of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” Nora Barrows-Friedman reports from Tel Aviv.