Whatever may be the fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israeli army’s war in Gaza is not about him. As senior security analyst Alex Fishman widely reported, the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and was constantly pushing for it, with the goal of destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its government. The army initiated an escalation on 8 June when it assassinated Abu Samhadana, a senior appointee of the Hamas government, and intensified its shelling of civilians in the Gaza Strip. The capture of the soldier released the safety-catch, and the operation began on 28 June. Read more about What are they fighting for?
Last Saturday in Dublin, despite the spitting and occasionally pouring rain, over 500 people marched to protest Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The rally was called by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity campaign, and was the culmination of a week of condemnation of Israeli actions. The march got a supportive reaction from passers-by, showing the popularity of the Palestinian cause among ordinary Irish people. Speakers included the Palestinian representative in Ireland, Hikmat Ajurri, as well as a representative from the Palestinian community, who thanked so many people for coming out and showing solidarity with the Palestinian people. Read more about Hundreds march in Dublin for Palestinian rights
As Americans commemorated their annual celebration of independence from colonial occupation, rejoicing in their democratic institutions, we Palestinians were yet again besieged by our occupiers, who destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water plants, and who attack our very means of civil administration. As I inspect the ruins of our infrastructure — the largess of donor nations and international efforts all turned to rubble once more by F-16s and American-made missiles — my thoughts again turn to the minds of Americans. What do they think of this? Read more about Aggression under false pretenses
The same malign intent by Israel towards the Palestinians is stamped through its history like the lettering in a children’s stick of seaside rock. But despite the consistent aim of Israeli policy, generation after generation of Western politicians, diplomats and journalists has shown a repeated inability to grasp what is happening before its very eyes. The Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi once noted that the first goal of Israel’s founders as they prepared to establish their Jewish state on a large swath of the Palestinian homeland in 1948 was to empty Palestine’s urban heartlands of their educated elites. Read more about Israel's latest bureaucratic obscenity
The capture of a French-Israeli gunner on a tank during military operations on Palestinian territory triggered an extreme and illegal response from the Israeli government. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are paying an unacceptably high price as a consequence of Israel’s ongoing attacks and border closures. Israel’s performance shows a total disregard for the rules of international humanitarian law. They have lost sight of the human value and dignity of the Palestinian people. If Europe recognises that the lives of Palestinians are as valuable as the life of the French-Israeli soldier, it should act immediately to stop the tragedy that is unfolding. Read more about Action not words are needed to change Israel's behaviour
The debut CD of Palestinian singer Reem Kelani - “Sprinting Gazelle: Palestinian Songs from the Motherland and the Diaspora” - is a major contribution from this remarkable singer, musical researcher and broadcaster towards reviving and spreading Palestinian culture. In the weeks since “Sprinting Gazelle” was released in the UK it has been acclaimed by critics and journalists, and has received excellent reviews in nearly every serious British newspaper. Critics have praised the quality, range and emotional depth of Kelani’s voice. Read more about Reem Kelani: Telling the Palestinian narrative through song
This year, the 9th of July is a bitter day for Palestinians. The Occupation Army besieges Gaza, massacres its people and attacks its infrastructure. The ghettos of the West Bank take shape as the Apartheid Wall edges closer to completion and the Palestinian exodus from Jerusalem has begun. Over 9000 Palestinians sit in Israeli prison cells whilst Palestinians who remain on their 1948 lands do so under the subjugation of the most vicious and discriminatory Apartheid system. The brief euphoria of two years ago, following the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Wall, is a distant memory. Some hailed a victory for international law in Palestine when the ICJ ruled the Wall illegal. Read more about Globalizing the Occupation
The 150 protesters organized a number of actions including a mock die-in where demonstrators lay down on the street and were covered with the Palestinian flags in solidarity with the Palestinians who are being killed on a daily basis in the Gaza Strip. In June 56 Palestinians, many of them civilians including children, were killed by Israeli Occupation Forces. In addition to singing Palestinian songs and chanting for an end to the occupation, international protection for the Palestinian people and sanctions against Israel, the demonstrators donned blindfolds and bound their hands to depict the plight of Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails. Read more about Palestinian Child Demands Protection for the Palestinian People at the UN
The Electronic Intifada’s coverage of “Operation Summer Rain” — the code name for Israel’s massive destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure — continues. EI is currently being updated several times daily from around the world. During the Gaza invasion, we are using all of our site’s five multimedia panels to point to the special BYTOPIC section of Key Events, “Israel invades Gaza (27 June 2006)”, and to showcase some of the incredible photographs from on the ground put out by the Ma’an News Agency. EI was saddened to learn this morning of the serious injury of 20-year-old Ma’an photographer Mohammad Az Zanoun in Gaza. Read more about Mohammad Az Zanoun and the Spirit of Nonviolent Resistance
When elections were imposed on the Palestinian people, while still under occupation, we questioned and suspected the whole process. We wondered how a free election could be conducted while the whole nation lives under a military occupation, especially in light of the undeniable correlation between freedom and democracy, as stated on the US Department of State’s website: “Freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of a set of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long, often tortuous history. In short, democracy is the institutionalisation of freedom”. Read more about Beware of Democracy
