Massacres continue in Gaza
Israel killed 116 Palestinians in Gaza last week in an orgy of air strikes and ground incursions, turning the besieged and starved Strip into an unbearable inferno. Hundreds more Palestinians were wounded. At least half the dead and wounded were civilians, including many young children. So great was the catastrophe that Egypt,...If it bleeds in Israel, it leads in America
But most Palestinian resistance to the occupation is non-violent Recent actions by Palestinians in Gaza seemed designed to expose bias in the American media. Last weekend, they organized a non-violent, symbolic protest at Gaza's borders. Later in the week, Hamas began launching retaliatory rockets into Israel,...
Children killed as Israel pounds Gaza
March 1st, 20080 A boy sits next to the body of 6-month-old Palestinian baby Mohammed al-Borai in a mosque before his funeral in GazaGAZA CITY — Israel pounded the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Thursday, February 28, killing four children and 10 militants, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to make the Islamists pay a heavy price for rocket...One third of settlements on private land
Not long ago the greengrocer in Ramallah recalled — between weighing locally grown zucchini and stripped hyssop leaves — that his family owned the land on which the gas station at the old entrance to the Jewish settlement of Beit El in the West Bank is located. A Palestinian boy hurling a stone at Israeli troops He would not be...Hamas renews call for ceasefire with Israel
JERUSALEM — A Hamas official this week renewed calls for a ceasefire amid mounting Israeli demands for a broad military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Writing in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Ahmed Yussef, a Hamas foreign policy advisor, called for a long-term ceasefire between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces. Sderot solidarity...For the world, Gaza is reality TV
GAZA CITY (IPS) — "We are being starved, killed, tortured, and besieged — and all this while the world just watches," says Abu Wael at the funeral of the latest group of Gazans killed by Israeli forces. The death toll is mounting, even if much of the media is taking little note of killings on the Gaza side. Palestinian woman waits...Dimona signals Palestinian defiance
Moral judgments notwithstanding, the suicide bombing in Dimona on Monday is another chink in the siege imposed on all Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and it represents a continuity of the Palestinian rebellion that breached the wall between Gaza and Egypt last week. The fact that two fighters succeeded in reaching Dimona in...George Habash leaves legacy of resistance, violence
George Habash, known with affection as al-Hakim, the doctor, came to the end of his life without reaching his dream of Palestinian liberation. He was born in Lyd, Palestine in 1925 and saw al-Nakba first-hand as volunteer medical staff, then as a displaced Palestinian. After dedicating his life to the Palestinian cause, he was...Fallout from the Gaza earthquake
The mass break-out of some 700,000 Palestinians from Israel's open-air prison at Gaza has profoundly changed the political landscape of the Middle East. In magnitude, it can be compared to the impact on Europe of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nothing will be the same again. There can be no return to the past. All the main actors in the...People’s power in Gaza: They simply did it
In a radio interview prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, David Barsamian asked Noam Chomsky what ordinary Americans could do to stop the war. Chomsky answered, "In some parts of the world people never ask, 'what can we do?’ They simply do it." For someone who was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza, Chomsky's seemingly oblique...
The breaking of the Rafah wall
February 5th, 20080 It looked like the fall of the Berlin wall. And not only did it look like it. For a moment, the Rafah crossing was the Brandenburg Gate. It is impossible not to feel exhilaration when masses of oppressed and hungry people break down the wall that is shutting them in, their eyes radiant, embracing everybody they meet — to feel so even...
Breaking the siege
January 28th, 20080 Hundreds of thousands cross downed Gaza wallArab street erupts in protests supporting Palestinians Thousands of Palestinians continued to cross into Egypt for a second day on Thursday to buy much needed supplies. Egyptian officials have warned that the border with the Gaza Strip, breached by Palestinian fighters seeking to end an...Christian Zionists feel ‘betrayed’ by Road Map
OAKLAND (IPS) — President George W. Bush returned home from his trip to the Middle East optimistic about the possibility of a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians before he leaves office in January of next year. "In order for there to be lasting peace, President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert have to come together...
Gaza strike hardens Hamas position
January 19th, 20080 In an interview, key Hamas strategist Mahmoud Zahar discusses how his movement has been preparing for a potentially imminent Israeli assault on Gaza. Gaza City — Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas leader widely seen as the strategic mind behind the Islamist movement's successful takeover of the Gaza Strip last summer, struck a defiant tone when...Donors back Palestinian economy, urge Israeli ease-up on restrictions
WASHINGTON (IPS) — International donors pledged billions of dollars this week to shore up peace prospects amid warnings no amount of money can help if Israel keeps the Palestinian economy in a stranglehold. Donor countries and agencies promised 7.4 billion dollars to the Palestinian Authority at a pledging conference in Paris Monday.......
The algebra of occupation
On 1805, the French Army out-maneuvered, outsmarted and out-fought the combined armies of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz. Three years later it would founder against a rag-tag collection of Spanish guerrillas. In 1967 it took six days for the Israeli Army to smash Egypt, Jordan and Syria and seize the West Bank, the Golan Heights,...Christians in Gaza: An integral part of society
Gaza — Abu Saeed, a vendor selling electrical appliances in Gaza City's Rimal district, says that it only occurs to him that the vendor selling foodstuffs next door, Abu Hana, is Christian during the Christian holidays. They have been working together in their neighboring shops for over 30 years, exchanging greetings and pleasantries, as...West Bank Palestinians imprisoned by Israel
The lives of 10,000 Palestinians trapped within West Bank enclaves — cut off from Israel to the west by the Green Line and separated from the West Bank proper to the east by the barrier — have been ruined socially and economically, with their education disrupted and their livelihoods destroyed or seriously damaged. Some have died or...Darkness surrounds spotlight on peace talks
NEW YORK (IPS) — In the aftermath of the Annapolis peace conference, foreign policy analysts and human rights advocates are finding considerable irony in Israel's Arab neighbors pressing for freedom for Palestinians while their own citizens continue to carry a heavy burden of unrelenting political repression. Most of those representing......
When the roadmap is a one way street
Israel's strategy for permanent occupation One may well think that the struggle inside the Jewish community of Israel is between those of the political right, who want to maintain the settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank so as to "redeem" the Greater Land of Israel as a Jewish country, and those of the left who seek a...Palestinians protest the Annapolis summit
We do not recognize those who hold talks in Annapolis; they do not represent the Palestinian people," said Ismail Haniyeh, the dismissed Palestinian Prime Minister, in response to the Washington-sponsored Palestinian-Israeli summit in Annapolis this week. The streets of Palestine bore witness that it isn't only the Hamas leader who......
What happened in Annapolis?
December 2nd, 20070 BEIRUT — The Middle East peace gathering at Annapolis, Maryland, Tuesday was full of lofty rhetoric, some intriguing new promises, a few bold commitments and a tantalizing cast of characters — alongside plenty of rehashed old rhetoric, rigid positions and regurgitated failed diplomatic mechanisms. It left us with as many questions as...Christians and Muslims coexist in Gaza
GAZA CITY (IPS) — As Sunday dawns in Gaza City the traditional Islamic call to prayer mingles melodically with church bells. Side by side, mosque and church doors swing open, welcoming the faithful. Greetings are eagerly exchanged. The October kidnapping and murder of Rami Ayyad, the manager of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, sent......
