Category Archives: Palestine

IRIN Middle East | Gaza diary: Life under Israeli assault | Israel | OPT | Conflict | Security | Urban Risk

{Like London Calling in 1940 – Gaza calling for the 3rd time!}

Many Palestinians are tired and sad. In the rest of the world I am 26 years old, but here in Gaza we have a different measure of time – I am 3 wars old. Too many years of Israeli attacks have worn us down. When I graduated I had options to work in many countries. Instead I returned to Gaza to rebuild the city I know and love. Now we are faced with starting again.

Yet we also share a common spirit of resilience. We have paid a high cost in lives in this conflict. But if that’s the price for long-term changes – breaking the siege and obtaining freedom – it’s one many of us feel we have no choice but to swallow. Otherwise, we would merely be replacing the quick death of an airstrike with the slow death of the blockade.

Haytham Besaiso is a civil engineer who has an MSc from the University of Manchester in the UK

via IRIN Middle East | Gaza diary: Life under Israeli assault | Israel | OPT | Conflict | Security | Urban Risk.

Pro-Palestine supporters urged to ditch Garnier over its support for Israeli army

‘It’s time to ditch Garnier’. That’s the message from Palestinian human rights organisation, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, as it emerged that Garnier has, over the last few days, provided ‘care packages’ of face creams, deodorants, soaps and other cosmetics to female members of the Israeli army.

The company says it has provided the ‘girly’ packages to the women ‘so they can still pamper themselves, even in times of war!’

Sarah Colborne, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: ‘It’s beyond words that, while the Israeli army is raining death and destruction on Palestinian children, men and women in Gaza with its bombs and shells, Garnier is providing face creams and facial soaps to that army’s female soldiers.

via Pro-Palestine supporters urged to ditch Garnier over its support for Israeli army.

Jimmy Carter: World powers should rethink approach to Hamas | Maan News Agency

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Former US president Jimmy Carter said in an op-ed Monday that in order for the Israel-Gaza status quo to change, the international community needs to recognize Hamas as a “legitimate political actor.”

“Hamas cannot be wished away, nor will it cooperate in its own demise,” an op-ed written by Carter and former Irish president Mary Robinson said.

“Only by recognizing its legitimacy as a political actor — one that represents a substantial portion of the Palestinian people — can the West begin to provide the right incentives for Hamas to lay down its weapons,” the op-ed, published in Foreign Policy, said.

“Ever since the internationally monitored 2006 elections that brought Hamas to power in Palestine, the West’s approach has manifestly contributed to the opposite result.”

Carter and Robinson called for an “partial lifting” of the eight-year-old blockade on the Gaza Strip, and said an international force should be put into place to monitor border crossings.

The presence of an international force is also necessary to hold both sides accountable for ceasefire violations, they said.

The op-ed was also heavily critical of the Israeli army’s handling of its offensive on Gaza.

“There is no humane or legal justification for the way the Israeli Defense Forces are conducting this war,” the op-ed said.

“Hundreds of Palestinian noncombatants have been killed. Much of Gaza has lost access to water and electricity completely. This is a humanitarian catastrophe.”

The op-ed also noted “unacceptable” actions by Hamas, but stressed that while Gaza militants have killed three civilians, the vast majority of the 1,875 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces throughout the assault have been civilians.

Both Carter and Robinson are members of the Elders, a non-governmental organization that describes itself as a group of “independent global leaders working together for peace and human rights.”

Carter is among the most notable American public figures to criticize Israeli policy toward Palestinians. He is the author of “Peace Not Apartheid,” a book for which he has earned praise for its frank speech about Israel and Palestine. Some key American figures, however, accuse him of being biased against Israel.

via Jimmy Carter: World powers should rethink approach to Hamas | Maan News Agency.

Why There Aren’t Any Photos of Hamas Fighters (and Why the NYT, Tyler Hicks and Photographers Have Been Unfairly Blamed) — BagNews

I can understand if the New York Times, Tyler Hicks and other conflict photographers are frustrated. Working conditions in Gaza are surely hard enough without the drumbeat of allegations and personal intimations, from the conservative media to the Israel lobby to pundits like David Frum, promoting the idea that Western photographers are somehow willfully choosing not to photograph Hamas fighters, concentrating instead on churning out photo after photo of wounded and dead Palestinians. If the Hamas fighter black hole has grown darker and uglier recently, it also remains overtly fuzzy and presumptuous. The gist of the argument is that Hicks and the other Western photographers could easily seek out and photograph Hamas fighters, and thus balance out the coverage, but they have been too bullied and intimidated to do so.

via Why There Aren’t Any Photos of Hamas Fighters (and Why the NYT, Tyler Hicks and Photographers Have Been Unfairly Blamed) — BagNews.

Interview with Sociologist Eva Illouz about Gaza and Israeli Society – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Illouz: The only response is to create a vast camp of people who defend democracy. The right-left divide is no longer important. There is something more urgent right now: the defense of democracy. The voice of the extreme right is much louder and clearer than it was before. That’s what’s new: a racist right that is not ashamed of itself, that persecutes dissenters and even people who dare express compassion for the other side. The real danger to Israel and its sustainability comes from within. The fascist and racist elements are no less a security threat than the outside enemies.

via Interview with Sociologist Eva Illouz about Gaza and Israeli Society – SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Palestinian factions agree to 72-hour ceasefire | Maan News Agency

Palestinian factions have agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire starting from 8 a.m. on Tuesday, sources close to talks in Egypt told Ma’an on Monday.

Palestinian officials involved in the Cairo ceasefire talks said that the three-day ceasefire agreement is likely to pave the way for a full cessation to fighting, which has killed over 1,800 Palestinians.

Representatives from Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, held their first official meeting on Monday after a Palestinian delegation agreed Sunday to joint demands to present to Egyptian mediators.

via Palestinian factions agree to 72-hour ceasefire | Maan News Agency.

Never ask me about peace again – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

My father’s brother, Ismail al-Ghoul, 60, was not a member of Hamas. His wife, Khadra, 62, was not a militant of Hamas. Their sons, Wael, 35, and Mohammed, 32, were not combatants for Hamas. Their daughters, Hanadi, 28, and Asmaa, 22, were not operatives for Hamas, nor were my cousin Wael’s children, Ismail, 11, Malak, 5, and baby Mustafa, only 24 days old, members of Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine or Fatah. Yet, they all died in the Israeli shelling that targeted their home at 6:20 a.m. on Sunday morning.

Their house was located in the Yibna neighborhood of the Rafah refugee camp. It was one story with a roof made of thin asbestos that did not require two F-16 missiles to destroy. Would someone please inform Israel that refugee camp houses can be destroyed, and their occupants killed, with only a small bomb, and that it needn’t spend billions to blow them into oblivion?

If it is Hamas that you hate, let me tell you that the people you are killing have nothing to do with Hamas. They are women, children, men and senior citizens whose only concern was for the war to end, so they can return to their lives and daily routines. But let me assure you that you have now created thousands — no, millions — of Hamas loyalists, for we all become Hamas if Hamas, to you, is women, children and innocent families. If Hamas, in your eyes, is ordinary civilians and families, then I am Hamas, they are Hamas and we are all Hamas.

Throughout the war, we thought that the worst had passed, that this was the pivotal moment when matters would improve, that they would stop there. Yet, that real moment of pain, of extreme fear, was always followed by something even worse.

via Never ask me about peace again – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

Middle East – Video: In Rafah ‘they’re exterminating entire families’ – France 24

Over the weekend, Rafah came under heavy Israeli fire. Dozens of residents died as Israel shelled the area – many of the victims were under the same roof, according to Abu Dobaa.

“They are exterminating entire families. There are many families in which every single member was killed. Do you understand what that means? It’s insane. People do not realise what is happening here,” he told FRANCE 24.

FRANCE 24’s special correspondents in Gaza went to a hospital where bodies were piling up. As they interviewed injured Palestinians, other wounded kept arriving. Some of them, very young, obviously had nothing to do with the conflict.

Nine-year old survivor

Saja Mustafa Zorob is recovering in a hospital bed. The nine-year-old girl does not know yet that she is the only one in her family who survived an Israeli air strike.

“I have no idea what happened. We were sleeping at my aunts’ house with everyone, my two uncles, my grandma and my mummy. All of a sudden I woke up and I was in an ambulance,” the little girl says.

Bodies in the Gaza strip have to be buried in a haste. Abu Dobaa’s brother and nephew are laid to rest in a row of freshly dug open graves.

Minutes after the burial, people who attended the funeral rush off to avoid being hit by another Israeli air strike. In Gaza, even graveyards are no longer safe.

via Middle East – Video: In Rafah ‘they’re exterminating entire families’ – France 24.

Israel Suspends Attack in Parts of Gaza, but Strike Kills Girl – NYTimes.com

Minutes after Israel began a unilateral and partial cease-fire in Gaza on Monday, the air force struck a house in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing a girl, 8, and wounding at least 29 others.

More than six hours later, there was still no official comment about the strike from the Israeli military, which continued to withdraw many of its ground forces from populated areas in Gaza, about why it struck the house.

After sharp criticism from the United States and the United Nations of its strike outside a United Nations school on Sunday, which killed seven people in addition to its intended targets, three Islamic Jihad fighters on a motorcycle, Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire to last from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Israel said the cease-fire was intended to assist humanitarian relief efforts.

Continue reading the main story

RELATED COVERAGE

Questions of Weapons and Warnings in Past Barrage on a Gaza ShelterAUG. 3, 2014

Airstrike Near U.N. School Kills 10 as Israel Shifts Troops in GazaAUG. 3, 2014

But the cease-fire was to take place only in areas where Israel was not engaged in military activity. Israeli Army officials said that east Rafah, in southern Gaza, far from Gaza City itself, was the only urban area where troops and tanks were engaged in fighting on Monday, with most of the rest of the Israeli troops pulled back closer to the border with Israel and some redeployed in staging areas inside Israel itself.

via Israel Suspends Attack in Parts of Gaza, but Strike Kills Girl – NYTimes.com.

70 bodies found in Rafah as death toll hits 1,830 | Maan News Agency

The death toll on the 27th day of Israel’s offensive on Gaza hit at least 120 on Sunday as health officials reported that over 70 bodies had been recovered in Rafah, a day after the city came under fierce, prolonged bombardment by Israeli forces.

Health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra told Ma’an that the bodies of 70 Palestinians had been recovered from the city in southern Gaza, while 55 other Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks across the Strip Sunday.

The continuing attacks brought the total death toll in the assault to 1,830 with nearly 10,000 injured.

via 70 bodies found in Rafah as death toll hits 1,830 | Maan News Agency.