Rami AlmeghariGaza Strip, Palestine21 November 2007
“We had been waiting for an urgent referral to an outside hospital for the past six days, until he died today,” said Dr. Ismail Yassin Monday, in response to the death of one more patient at the Gaza Children’s Hospital. Tamer al-Yazji, a 12-year-old chicken pox patient, died on Monday on his hospital bed after his referral to an Israeli hospital had been delayed. EI correspondent Rami Almeghari talks to Gaza health care workers and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel about Israel denying Gazans access to health care and the reports of Shabak pressuring patients to inform in exchange for permission to travel. Read more about "A matter of revenge": Israel denying medical treatment to Gaza
WASHINGTON, 12 November (IPS) - A small group of Middle East and African studies scholars in the United States has announced the creation of a new professional association to change the direction of scholarship in the field. And it boasts several big name albeit controversial scholars, among them Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, two academics who advised the George W. Bush administration’s policy towards the Middle East. Read more about New Middle East scholars group seen as close to White House
Ayda is yet another victim of Israel’s devastating closure of Gaza. While her husband, 37-year-old Zakariya Abdelal from the Gaza City neighborhood of al-Tuffah, was receiving condolences from friends and neighbors, their youngest son, 10-month-old baby Mustafah, lay calmly in the corner. Thirty-one-year-old mother of seven Ayda died after losing her fight with breast cancer, which necessitated chemotherapy treatment currently unavailable in Gaza. EI correspondent Rami Almeghari writes from Gaza. Read more about Mother dies after being denied access to health care
Jesse RosenfeldRamallah, West Bank13 November 2007
Standing on a hill at the edge of Idhna with the displaced farmers Muhammad Talab and Muhammad Ibrahim Natah, the only visible remnants of their destroyed village is a patch of white dust just on the other side of Israel’s wall. Despite being part of the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military destroyed the 267-person farming village of tents and tin houses west of Hebron on 29 October and allegedly ordered villagers to relocate to Idhna. EI contributor Jesse Rosenfeld reports from the occupied West Bank. Read more about Uprooted and displaced
Yacoub Odeh was the guide for Middle East Children’s Alliance’s twelve-day tour through Palestine/Israel. He became a friend who told me and showed me things I know I will never forget. At age 67, Yacoub seems to carry with him the whole history of modern Palestine. And that is above all a history — and ongoing experience — of terrible loss. Deborah Agre writes about his story. Read more about Visiting Palestine
Leading Palestinian and Israeli scholars and activists will be among the speakers at an unprecedented conference to explore a one-state solution, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London on 17-18 November. Organized by the London One State Group and the SOAS Palestine Society, the conference, “Challenging the Boundaries: A Single State in Israel/Palestine,” will explore new models for a just peace including binationalism, secular democracy, a ‘state of all its citizens’ and federalism. Read more about Palestinian, Israeli scholars to advance one-state solution in London
Abed Shinawi has died. In the words of the Palestinians, among others, he was martyred. Martyr in Palestine refers to anyone who has died as a result of the Israeli occupation, as with the 38-year-old handicapped, wheelchair-bound man killed in an IOF invasion Nablus’ al-Ain refugee camp a month and a half ago. Or it refers into the elderly man shot five times in the chest after he opened his door to IOF assurances of his safety during the same 16 October Israeli invasion that eventually claimed Abed’s life. A friend of Abed’s writes about the young man and resistance fighter who was recently killed in Nablus. Read more about Abed the martyr
JERUSALEM, 8 November (IRIN) - Israel’s highest court on 7 November ordered the state to explain within one week how it planned to ensure that the latest sanctions imposed on Gaza, including fuel and power cuts, would not have a negative humanitarian impact. The court was hearing a petition lodged by 10 Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, and the deputy-director of the Gaza Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), demanding an end to the restrictions. Read more about Petitioners: Cutting Gaza supplies collective punishment
Since the Hamas-led government seized control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June, severe Israeli pressure has been imposed on the coastal region’s 1.4-million-strong population. Gaza has been sustaining the effects of such pressure at the same time as it has been absorbing the impact of the seemingly unending inter-Palestinian violence, which has claimed the lives of at least 400 Palestinians and continues to disrupt everyday life inthe already impoverished society. EI correspondent Rami Almeghari writes from Gaza. Read more about Gaza's hard place between Israeli and Palestinian violence
