oh rafah. aching rafah. aching of refugees aching of tumbled houses bicycles severed from tank-warped tires and aching of bullet riddled homes all homes worm-eaten by bullets and then impregnated through bullet holes by birds.
Read the journal entry of peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was living in Rafah when she was crushed to death by an Israeli-operated bulldozer while defending one of the many homes that have been destroyed by the Israeli military in Rafah. Read more about "oh rafah, aching rafah" - A poem from the journal of Rachel Corrie
Observing Israel’s propaganda campaign to deflect the current international spotlight away from its brutal military operation in Rafah, I am struck by the sheer scale of the lie and the blatantly premeditated campaign to cloud the issue instead of dealing transparently with the obvious and undeniable abuses. Even the hapless United States administration — whose contentedly culturally-ignorant and amoral soldiers were violating the human rights of Joe and Jane Iraqi long before the abuse in Abu Ghraib came to light — has enough of a clue when finally caught red-handed to understand that the only way out of the mess was to begin a process of prosecuting those responsible. Read more about Letter from and to America
Fifty Israelis demonstrated for the second day at the entrance to the Gaza Strip. Following the killing of innocents in Rafah, 500 Israeli protesters blocked major streets in Tel-Aviv. Eight were arrested and three wounded by police violence. It is 00:30 in Jerusalem, and I’m back from a long day, that unexpectedly has seen this day’s most crucial land marks, at least from the Israeli side. Please excuse me if this report is somehwat confused, but I insisted on sending it ASAP to all of you in America, and many of you whom I know are still awake here. Demonstrations at Sufa checkpoints will resume tomorrow morning. On Friday a large demonstration is planned there. Read more about A black day: Jerusalem-Rafah-Tel Aviv
It was just before midnight (Tuesday, May 18th.), when I tried to contact my friend Mohammad from the worst hit neighborhoods in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. Earlier on, during the day, I made several attempts to contact my friend, but with no success. News from Rafah started to become extremely worrying about the high number of killed Palestinians at the Tel Al-Sultan area of Rafah. The Israeli army killed fourteen people in the morning of Tuesday alone. Journalist inside the area talked over the phone about injured people in the streets bleeding to death and calling for immediate help. But, Israeli snipers prevented ambulances and private cars from reaching the dead or injured by shooting at any one who came near those lying in the middle of the street. Read more about A phone call from under siege in Rafah
Since Rachel Corrie died in Rafah over a year ago, Rafah has held a special place in the hearts of Olympia residents who have been attempting to forge a sister city relationship with the besieged city. On May 18, the Olympia Rafah Sister City Project [ORSCP] sponsored a demonstration in support of the people in Rafah. About 35 people gathered at rush hour on Percival Landing to protest the latest destruction and show solidarity with the Palestinian people. The current deadly incursion in Rafah has hit many people here hard. Read more about Outrage in Olympia as Sister City is Attacked
The Palestinians are suffering, in the words of the UN Relief and Works Agency, the “effect of a terrible natural disaster”, but one that has been created by people and politics. A manmade catastrophe where a power imbalance, maintained and exaggerated by Western governments lies at the heart of mass impoverishment and dehumanisation of an entire people. Palestine is a microcosm of everything going on in the world today. Nick Dearden is Campaigns Officer at UK anti-poverty charity War on Want, examines the state of affairs in Palestine. Read more about Palestine: the end of their dreams
“…the Apaches are shelling us right now, many many fragments and parts of injured people everywhere in the area. I wasn’t able to identify the body of my relative who was killed. They brought him to the hospital in parts and fragments. I can’t beleive how Hani arrived like this, can’t can’t really can’t — why did they shell him with a group of children — why? — I don’t know why, God why is this?!! ” Mohammed, a student and amateur reporter in Gaza, e-mailed this account of the attack on Rafah during Friday’s attack. Read more about "...the Apaches are shelling us right now"
The Israeli, and pro-Israeli, media have made a great deal of noise about the recent Palestinian operations in the occupied Gaza Strip whereby eleven Israeli soldiers were killed in two separate attacks on armored personnel carriers. With very few exceptions in the Israeli and pro-Israeli media these operations have been deliberately misrepresented as some sort of “terrorist” attacks, a cynical propaganda ploy designed to discredit the Palestinian legal right to resist occupation. While there is no universally accepted definition of precisely what constitutes “terrorism”, there are particular factors that are generally accepted in most definitions as constituent elements of “terrorism”. Read more about Palestine: Legitimate Armed Resistance vs. Terrorism
Witnesses and officials in Jayyous, a farming village in the occupied West Bank, say a series of unprovoked tear-gas attacks by Israeli troops in recent weeks have taken a grave toll on residents’ health. The attacks come with a further tightening of Israeli military control of the town. Shareef Omar Khaled of the Jayyous Land Defense committee noted that Israel’s “separation wall” has now completely cut off the town from its agricultural lands. Shareef reports that soldiers frequently enter to the village and throw tear gas, and that many residents have developed respiratory problems. Read more about Israeli gas attacks take health toll on West Bank villagers
“I am asking today with deep sorrow: Can we, despite all our achievements, ignore the intolerable gap between what the Declaration of Independence promised and what was fulfilled, the gap between the idea and the realities of Israel? Does the condition of occupation and domination over another people fit the Declaration of Independence? Is there any sense in the independence of one at the expense of the fundamental rights of the other?” In this speech to the Knesset upon receiving the Wolf Prize delivered May 9, world-renowned musician and conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Daniel Barenboim asked difficult, but necessary questions. Read more about Daniel Barenboim's statement at the Knesset upon receiving the Wolf Prize, May 9, 2004
