Category Archives: Global Politics

Through Lens, 4 Boys Dead by Gaza Shore – NYTimes.com

My day here began at 6 a.m. Photographing something as unpredictable as war still has a routine.

It is important to be out the door at first light to document the destruction of the last night’s bombings. By midmorning, I check in at the hospital’s morgue to see if families have come to pick up the dead for burial.

When the routine is broken, it is because things can go horribly wrong in an instant. That is how it happened in Libya in 2011, when three colleagues and I were taken captive by government soldiers and our driver was killed.

On Wednesday, that sudden change of fortune came to four young Palestinian boys playing on a beach in Gaza City.

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I had returned to my small seaside hotel around 4 p.m. to file photos to New York when I heard a loud explosion. My driver and I rushed to the window to see what had happened. A small shack atop a sea wall at the fishing port had been struck by an Israeli bomb or missile and was burning. A young boy emerged from the smoke, running toward the adjacent beach.

I grabbed my cameras and was putting on body armor and a helmet when, about 30 seconds after the first blast, there was another. The boy I had seen running was now dead, lying motionless in the sand, along with three other boys who had been playing there.

By the time I reached the beach, I was winded from running with my heavy armor. I paused; it was too risky to go onto the exposed sand. Imagine what my silhouette, captured by an Israeli drone, might look like as a grainy image on a laptop somewhere in Israel: wearing body armor and a helmet, carrying cameras that could be mistaken for weapons. If children are being killed, what is there to protect me, or anyone else?

I watched as a group of people ran to the children’s aid. I joined them, running with the feeling that I would find safety in numbers, though I understood that feeling could be deceptive: Crowds can make things worse. We arrived at the scene to find lifeless, mangled bodies. The boys were beyond help. They had been killed instantly, and the people who had rushed to them were shocked and distraught.

Earlier in the day, I had photographed the funeral for a man and a 12-year-old boy. They had been killed when a bomb hit the car in which they were riding south of Gaza City, severely injuring an older woman with them.

There is no safe place in Gaza right now. Bombs can land at any time, anywhere.

A small metal shack with no electricity or running water on a jetty in the blazing seaside sun does not seem like the kind of place frequented by Hamas militants, the Israel Defense Forces’ intended targets. Children, maybe four feet tall, dressed in summer clothes, running from an explosion, don’t fit the description of Hamas fighters, either.

via Through Lens, 4 Boys Dead by Gaza Shore – NYTimes.com.

Israel denies American teaching volunteers entry to West Bank – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

Ahwal said that even though she was allowed entry without a problem in June to attend the federation’s conference in Ramallah, this time the Israelis at the bridge acted differently. “As soon as we came up to passport control, I knew something bad was up,” she told Al-Monitor in Amman.

Israeli officials interrogated the entire group, trying to find any discrepancies in their narratives. In the end, Ahwal was told that she was denied entry for five years, and that the group will not be allowed in because they “lied.”

via Israel denies American teaching volunteers entry to West Bank – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

Kidnapped women, kids are ‘sex slaves’ in DR Congo | News , World | THE DAILY STAR

Anyone listening? Didn’t think so, since this has been going on for decades. As long as minerals keep flowing from Congo to rest of the world’s industries – no one seems to really care.

“Victims have been held as sex slaves – sometimes for months at a time – and sexually assaulted violently by several men, several times a day,” MSF psychologist Ana Maria Tijerino said in a statement.

The aid group also warned that men are being kidnapped and put to work as laborers in the gold and diamond mining region of Okapi, in the east of the vast, mineral-rich nation.

In just one village between May and early July, MSF said its medical teams provided consultations for 3,586 people and treated 143 women, three men and two children who had suffered sexual violence.

Last month a team treated 20 women in a single village who had been raped, it said.

“Violence and sexual violence are nothing new in DR Congo,” Tijerino said. “But for the victims, these atrocities are not normal. No one should have to accept violence on this level.”

MSF warned that many of the victims of sexual violence kept captive for weeks were not receiving vital medical aid that could protect against HIV, sexually transmitted infections or pregnancy.

“Months after an assault, the physical and psychological trauma is still apparent in the survivors,” Tijerino said. “Many suffer from pain, infected wounds, stress, depression and nightmares. They are scared for the future and haunted by what they have lived through.”

via Kidnapped women, kids are ‘sex slaves’ in DR Congo | News , World | THE DAILY STAR.

Israel warns 100,000 Gazans to evacuate their homes | Maan News Agency

So if this child is killed because he has no place to go – it will be his fault because he was warned, or it makes it OK for the homes of 100,000 people to be destroyed?

Israel urged 100,000 Gazans to flee their homes on Wednesday, but the warning was largely ignored despite an intensification of the military’s nine-day campaign.

via Israel warns 100,000 Gazans to evacuate their homes | Maan News Agency.

Israel to demolish 3 homes of Hebron men suspected of killing teens | Maan News Agency

Never have understood this and wonder if homes of three people who have admitted killing of Palestinian teen will be similarly demolished?

Israeli forces on Tuesday delivered demolition orders to the families of two Palestinians in Hebron Israel accuses of kidnapping and killing three Israeli teenagers.

More than a week ago, Israeli forces partly demolished two of the houses, which belonged to Amer Abu Aisha and Marwan al-Qawasmi.

via Israel to demolish 3 homes of Hebron men suspected of killing teens | Maan News Agency.

Afghanistan car bomb leaves at least 89 civilians dead | World | The Guardian

On and on it goes, down and down they go, why oh, why oh why?

A suicide attacker killed 89 people when he detonated a car filled with explosives in a crowded bazaar in eastern Afghanistan, the bloodiest insurgent attack on civilians for several years.

Dozens more were injured in a blast so big that it brought down the roofs of shops lining the roads, trapping shopkeepers and their customers in the rubble.

“A man in a Toyota SUV was identified by police as a potential attacker, but when they ordered him to stop for checks, he set off the bomb,” the deputy provincial police chief, Nasar Ahmad, told the Guardian. He said all but two of the victims were civilians.

via Afghanistan car bomb leaves at least 89 civilians dead | World | The Guardian.

rubble and dust | Palestine Rose

Dr. Nasser al-Tatar, shining example

of selflessness and humanity,

worked continuous shifts for six days

in Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital;

…when he finally went home,

Dr. Nasser al-Tater,

watched as his home

where he had lived for 30 years—

was being bombed into rubble and dust

in less than one minute,

by an American F-16 ‘Falcon Fighter’ jet,

given to Israel by American tax payers…

via rubble and dust | Palestine Rose.

Read carefully – Israel isn’t bombing Gaza because of Hamas — New Internationalist

Israel’s oppression of Palestinians doesn’t start and finish with large-scale military operations: ‘normality’ for Gazans is ghetto life, for those in the West Bank, ethnic cleansing and colonization. Rockets or no rockets do not change this. The air, sea and land blockade of Gaza – now supported by Egypt – has gone on for seven long years. And when a ceasefire is implemented, and it may be in place by 9am on 15 July, Israel and its supporters will expect a return to the status quo. This is why resistance should not be denounced by those outside liberation movements: resistance in all forms is any oppressed people’s right to shout to the world, ‘we’re still here’ and to demand justice and change.

Until the world realizes that military operations in Gaza are about subduing the population into compliance with Israel’s quest to carry on as it pleases, the occupying state will continue killing and oppressing, unabated for decades to come.

via Israel isn’t bombing Gaza because of Hamas — New Internationalist.

Israel’s far right spreads from the fringes | Middle East | DW.DE | 14.07.2014

According to Rachel Elior, a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, these are dangerous statements that should be banned.

“There are certain circles that want to deny the fact that Palestinians are people just like us. No more, no less,” she said on Israeli radio. “Unfortunately, many think that we are a holy people, and that non-Jews can be defined as unclean and worthy of death.”

The rabbis base their views on ancient and traditional Jewish texts, said Elior, adding that this doesn’t, however, legitimize racism.

The Jewish people have a long history that stretches back more than 3,000 years, she added. The collective memory is shaped by texts, which resulted, in part, from Jews living as a persecuted minority among other peoples, said Elior.

There are written sources over 3,000 years old, and it’s clear “that over such a long period of time there are all sorts of beliefs that are no longer acceptable today,” she said. “Just as we no longer have slaves or maidservants, although there are religious laws that permit doing so, you cannot allow racist comments based on these Israeli sources.”

via Israel’s far right spreads from the fringes | Middle East | DW.DE | 14.07.2014.