Suppose that the US weapon makers had to use a tunnel to deliver weapons to Israel. The US would have to build a mighty big tunnel to accommodate the weapons that Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Caterpillar have supplied to Israel. The size of such a tunnel would be an eighth wonder of the world, a Grand Canyon of a tunnel, an engineering feat of the ages. Kathy Kelly writes from Chicago, the United States after returning from Gaza. Read more about If Israel's weapons came through a tunnel
Traffic on Sea Street, a major thoroughfare alongside Gaza’s coastline, includes horses, donkeys pulling carts, cyclists, pedestrians, trucks and cars, mostly older models. Overhead, in stark contrast to the street below, Israel’s ultra-modern unmanned surveillance planes crisscross the skies. F-16s and helicopters can also be heard. Remnants of their deliveries, the casings of missiles, bombs and shells used during the past three weeks of Israeli attacks, are scattered on the ground. Kathy Kelly writes from the occupied Gaza Strip. Read more about Worse than an earthquake
18 January 2009: Late last night, a text message notified us that the Israeli government was very close to declaring that they would stop attacking Gaza for one day. Shortly before midnight, we heard huge explosions, four in a row. Till now, that was the last attack. Israeli drones flew overhead all night long, but residents of Rafah were finally able to get eight hours of sleep uninterrupted by F-16s and Apache helicopters attacking them. Kathy Kelly writes from the occupied Gaza Strip. Read more about In Gaza, love is the strongest weapon
I learned about the horrors of economic warfare during repeated visits to Iraq, when civilians suffered under economic sanctions, when pediatric wards in hospitals were like death rows for infants and hundreds of thousands of children were punished to death. But I was a shamefully slow learner. In 1991, after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and before the United States began bombing Iraq, I was part of the Gulf Peace Team, an assembly of international peace activists camped on the Iraq side of the border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Kathy Kelly comments for EI. Read more about Cease fire, cease siege
I heard some people here in Egypt wonder if the Israeli Air Force must be running out of places and people to target. But perhaps the surveillance drones we heard and saw flying over the Rafah border crossing today hunted down more spots on which bombers could fix their cross-hairs. Kathy Kelly writes from al-Arish, Egypt. Read more about Tunnel vision
Two days ago, driving toward the village of Qana, we saw men at work, creating neatly aligned rows of rectangular cement structures that would soon be ready for burials. On foot, we entered Qana, thinking we should at least identify the site where a massacre had taken place when, on July 30th, an Israeli bomb hit a building that sheltered children as they slept. It took five hours for ambulances to reach them. Statistics differ, but the most recent Human Rights Watch report estimated that twenty-three were killed. Read more about The Massacre at Qana
Upon arrival in Beirut in early August, 2006, Michael Birmingham met Abu Mustafa. Michael is an Irish citizen who has worked with Voices campaigns for several years. Abu Mustafa is a kindly Lebanese cab driver. Having fled his home in the Dahiya neighborhood which was being heavily bombed, Abu Mustafa was living in his car. Abu Mustafa joked that he sometimes went back to his home in the already evacuated area of the Dahiya, just to take a shower or sometimes a proper nap. Read more about A Proportionate Response
Mohammed graduated from Al Quds Univeristy as an economist. His head is bandaged. He was wounded on Friday, April 5, and remained inside the camp for four days with no medical help, and was then captured and detained for three days until he was released by Israeli Defense Forces at the Salem checkpoint. Read more about Testimony from Mohammed, a wounded refugee
When we arrived in Taybeh, soldiers turned us back at the checkpoint. We quickly spotted a taxi driver who drove us to a hilltop and then asked us with a kindly smile, “Can you run?” Grabbing our gear, we scrambled out of his car and began sprinting down the mountainside, across fields strewn with rocks. Read more about Jenin diary - April 12 - 15
We visited the home of Umm and Abu Mahmoud. Their son, Mahmoud, died during the attack on the Jenin Camp. Mahmoud was a 31 year old merchant. His wife was pregnant with their third child, but she miscarried after learning that Mahmoud was killed, reportedly by a bullet wound at the back of his head. Read more about Testimony from Jenin
