JERUSALEM, 8 November (IRIN) - Israel’s highest court on 7 November ordered the state to explain within one week how it planned to ensure that the latest sanctions imposed on Gaza, including fuel and power cuts, would not have a negative humanitarian impact. The court was hearing a petition lodged by 10 Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, and the deputy-director of the Gaza Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), demanding an end to the restrictions. Read more about Petitioners: Cutting Gaza supplies collective punishment
Since the Hamas-led government seized control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June, severe Israeli pressure has been imposed on the coastal region’s 1.4-million-strong population. Gaza has been sustaining the effects of such pressure at the same time as it has been absorbing the impact of the seemingly unending inter-Palestinian violence, which has claimed the lives of at least 400 Palestinians and continues to disrupt everyday life inthe already impoverished society. EI correspondent Rami Almeghari writes from Gaza. Read more about Gaza's hard place between Israeli and Palestinian violence
RAMALLAH, 6 November (IPS) - After packing the ambulance with medical equipment and bags full of medicine, Dr. Jameel Mashny, Dr. Rami Habash and their nurse, Maysa Youseff, all from the Palestine Medical Relief Society (PMRS), prepare themselves for the long day ahead. If it is business as usual, it will be a day of organized chaos. Screaming children will hide behind their mothers, elderly men will complain that they do not like the taste of their medicine — and a poor village will get desperately needed medical relief. Read more about West Bankers get some medical care
For the people of our small village of Bil’in, which lies west of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the planned negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders in Annapolis, Maryland evoke mixed feelings. Like all Palestinians, we pray that our children will not spend their lives as we did, under Israeli military occupation. But our experience has been that Israel, the stronger party, exploits peace talks as a smokescreen to obscure facts that it is establishing on the ground. EI contributor Mohammed Khatib comments. Read more about Nothing less than our freedom
I marched and lobbied in DC last June to call for an end to forty years of Israeli occupation and the US policies that support it. The sign I carried posed a single question. It is one that urgently begs to be addressed, debated and answered. I believe it holds significant implications, not only for Jews, but for the entire Middle East. “When do we stop sitting shiva for the Holocaust?” EI contributor Rita Corriel asks. Read more about When do we stop sitting shiva for the Holocaust?
The roads to Gaza were long, dusty and, apart from Israeli military vehicles, almost completely empty on 24 October as tanks doing military exercises were far more prevalent than trucks carrying goods towards the border. The crossings are the only way Gaza can receive goods and Israel has been blockading them since June, recently tightening the blockade further with cuts to fuel and pending cuts to electricity. The once busy checkpoint crossings now lie empty. EI contributor Jesse Rosenfeld writes from outside the Gaza Strip. Read more about Where have all the trucks gone?
We the Palestinian Canadian community assembly at the Palestinian National Voice Preparatory Conference in Hamilton, Canada, issue this letter out of profound concern regarding the present state of the Palestinian national struggle and the November 2007 “peace” conference to be hosted by the United States in Annapolis, Maryland. Read more about Diaspora Palestinians to Abbas: Right of return not negotiable
Doron Livnat is co-owner of Riwal, a Dutch company involved in the illegal construction of the separation Wall in occupied Palestinian territory. Livnat is also a member of the board of the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI), a pro-Zionist political lobby group based in Amsterdam. CIDI does not seem to have a problem with the judgment of the International Court of Justice finding the route of the Wall illegal, nor Livnat’s company’s involvement in this illegal activity. Yet, CIDI still has the audacity to condemn United Civilians for Peace, a broad-based Dutch human rights platform. Stan van Houcke analyzes for EI. Read more about Dutch "research" group covers for Israeli crimes, violations
Jerusalem … The east side story squeezes nearly one hundred years of history into an hour or so of cinema. It mainly exposes the past forty years of Israeli military occupation policies in Jerusalem and their devastating impact on the city and its peoples. The producer of the film, Terry Boullata, says that the intention of the documentary is to bring the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence to a Western audience which has shown by way of its acquiescence to the ongoing Israeli military occupation that it still needs to be educated. Sam Bahour reviews for EI. Read more about Film review: "Jerusalem ... The east side story"
Nothing could be easier in the present atmosphere than to accuse anyone who calls for recognition of and dialogue with Hamas, Hizballah and other Islamist movements of being closet supporters of reactionary “extremism” or naive fellow travelers of “terrorists.” This tactic is not surprising coming from neoconservatives and Zionists. What is novel is to see it expressed in supposedly progressive quarters. EI cofounder Ali Abunimah comments. Read more about Engaging Hamas and Hizballah
