Five years ago, nine-month-old Mohammed and his grandmother were in their West Bank home when it began to fill with nerve gas from a nearby Israeli Occupation Forces military base. The army had moved in on a hill near their home in the Skan Abu Absa suburb of Ramallah, and would frequently shoot all over the surrounding area, often retaliating against Palestinian gunfire from a hill away from the suburb. As the gas seeped into his living room, the baby Mohammed began to shake violently before suffering a stroke causing extensive paralysis. Read more about Paralysis, prophets and forgiveness
DAMASCUS, 3 May 2007 (IRIN) - Over 1,000 Iraqi-Palestinian refugees stranded in camps on the Syrian-Iraqi borders are sinking into despair as their situation continues to deteriorate and a solution to their plight remains elusive. “We are losing hope,” one refugee in the Al-Tanf camp, who requested anonymity, told IRIN. “There are problems between husbands and wives because of the situation and we are afraid for the future of our children. We are searching for a solution, but it does not exist.” Read more about Palestinian refugees despair after year marooned between Iraq and Syria
“Life has no taste in Gaza, where the law of the jungle rules. We are suffering because of the siege imposed on us by the Quartet: no salaries; no security as we are suffering from internal security chaos as a result of an absence of law; we are frustrated and feel hopeless. Thank God that we have the Mediterranean Sea along Gaza’s shores so that we can breathe; it’s the only place where Gazans usually go to enjoy themselves and have fun. Also, we, as youths, are lucky that we have Internet access to communicate with the outside world as we are locked in this cursed prison which is called Gaza.” Read more about Bleak reality in Gaza gives rise to dreams of emigration
Adri Nieuwhof and Amer MadiMas'ha, Palestine3 May 2007
Hani Amer lives with his wife and six children in the village of Mas’ha in Qalqilya district. His six-year-old son is the youngest child. According to Hani, since the 1970s Israel has confiscated at least 7,000,000 square metres — eighty percent — of the land of Mas’ha, to build the illegal Jewish settlement of Elkana. Until now Hani Amer and his family have resisted all attempts by the Israeli military and settlers to chase him away. Today their house has completely surrounded by the wall and high fences. The family exhausted all its resources in its resistance to the wall, but Hani Amer is determined to stay. Read more about "They will not break me"
Fifty-nine years ago last month, the militant Zionist Irgun and Stern Gang systematically murdered more than 100 men, women, and children in Deir Yassin. The Palestinian village lay outside the area the UN recommended to be included in a future Jewish State, and the massacre occurred several weeks before the end of the British Mandate, but it was part of a carefully planned and orchestrated process that would induce the flight of 70 percent of the native population to make way for an ethnically Jewish state. Read more about Deir Yassin Continues
Forty-eight-year-old Riyad Hammad from the Maghazi Refugee Camp in central Gaza woke up on Friday morning whilst his wife sat before a wood-burning stove. He headed for a nearby store, not to buy cookies, or anything else, but rather to bring some used papers and pieces of carton outside the store’s front door to his waiting wife. Since being cut off of work following the outbreak of the intifada in 2000 and the imposition of Israeli closures, Riyad has been collecting torn-apart carton packing material and used papers in order to save a few shekels due his inability to afford gas and electricity. Read more about A cheerless Labor Day in Gaza
On 17 April the Olympia, Washington City Council voted 4-2 against official recognition of the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project. Of the few news organizations following the story, that was the headline. But it wasn’t really the news. Possibly noteworthy was that more than 300 people attended the standing-room only public hearing on the project. People waited outside the building to get in to comment and observe. Forty-eight people spoke in support, 24 people expressed opposition. Read more about Bringing the discussion home: The Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project
It’s been more than three weeks since I last wrote. The reason is simple: things have been awful on the ground here in Palestine, leaving little time for reflection. As usual, Passover — the Jewish holiday celebrating freedom from oppression — was accompanied by tightening restrictions on Palestinians. While Jewish Israelis were feasting nearby, travel within the West Bank became difficult if not impossible, except of course for settlers who would breeze by the hundreds of Palestinians waiting for hours at checkpoints on their way home, to work, to the hospital, or elsewhere. Calling the Army was no help since most offices and services were closed for the holidays. Read more about Prelude to a third intifada?
JERUSALEM, 29 April 2007 (IRIN) - A recent United Nations report reveals that the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) continued to deteriorate in the second half of last year, largely because of a collapsing economy. Many Palestinians fell further into poverty. The Gaza Strip was the hardest hit with about 80 percent of households earning less than US $1 a day, twice the percentage of those earning that little in the West Bank. Read more about Humanitarian situation worsened in OPT in 2006
WASHINGTON, 24 April (IPS) - U.S. State Department officials confirmed this week that they have been in discussions with Israel and the Kurdish regional government about possible resettlement solutions for the estimated 15,000 Palestinian refugees currently stranded in Iraq.”At this point, we have had no positive response, but we continue to work on this,” said Ellen Sauerbrey, Assistant Secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, during a press briefing. Read more about U.S. State Department Pushes for Palestinian Resettlement
