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
RAMADI, 24 April 2007 (IRIN) - Palestinians living in Iraq’s Anbar province have come under increasing pressure from militants to leave or be killed, NGOs and Palestinians say. Palestinians in the capital, Baghdad, have long been threatened by armed groups and harassed by authorities but threats to them in other provinces are a new development, aid workers say. Sunni-dominated Anbar used to protect Palestinians, who are predominantly Sunni too, but times have changed. “Palestinians had been looking for safety and had found it in Anbar province but now they are being targeted [there also]. They have nowhere to go and might be killed if they try to go to another place,” Mahmoud Aydan said. Read more about Iraqi militants force Palestinians to leave Anbar
21 April 2007: “Thanks to the media here for telling the truth … Bring this truth to whatever country you come from!” These were Mairead Maguire’s words, a Nobel Peace Prize winner from Northern Ireland, just one hour before she was shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet by Israeli Occupation Forces. At a press conference next to the Apartheid Wall in Bil’in, she stood beside Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian Information Minister. “Nonviolence will solve the problems here in Israel and Palestine,” Ms. Macguire continued. Read more about Puerto Rican activist arrested at Second Bil'in International Conference on Nonviolence
The building in which the American International School in Gaza is situated is no longer beautiful. The damage can be seen in many corners of the school — in the front door, in the director’s office, in the cafeteria or in the computer room. “We have become Iraq,” a dusty man said while bending down on the floor, trying to clear away the debris from an explosion that rocked the school early Saturday morning. The principal’s office only contains torn apart chairs and shelves, with black big spots on the walls; the cafeteria’s chairs are now black, while the computer room is no longer hi-tech. Read more about Bombing of American school: Gaza's latest nightmare
Mountains of garbage, billowing smoke, have been concentrated across the streets of Gaza the past few days. However, the uncollected garbage heaps are not cannot be attributed to a lack of municipalities or labor force in the coastal region. One third of the 1.4 million-strong Gaza population is in the labor force that may be more aptly described as an “idle” labor force, and there are 25 municipalities tasked with sanitation. Also, there are high-tech electricity, water and telecommunications networks in the Gaza Strip, believed to be the most advanced in the region. Read more about Mounting garbage and frustration in Gaza
