September 3rd, 20200On August 16, the Israeli navy declared the Gaza sea a closed military zone. A few days later, a group of Gaza fishermen decided to take their chances by fishing within a mere two or three nautical miles off the Gaza shore. No sooner had they cast their nets, Israeli navy bullets began whizzing all around them.
Soon after the...
July 22nd, 20200For the first time since the Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is signaling its willingness to engage in negotiations regarding the release of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers believed to be held by resistance groups in Gaza. But will another prisoner exchange similar to that of...
February 19th, 20200WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Representatives Debbie Dingell (D-Dearborn) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) today sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, urging the administration to immediately restore all U.S. funding for humanitarian aid in Gaza, including United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and United Nations Relief...
January 28th, 20201WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Trump and his hard-line, right-wing ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, unveiled Trump’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan on Tuesday. The plan has been preemptively rejected by Palestinians, who see no signs in the plan of an end to Israeli occupation and illegal settlements. Netanyahu, on...
June 13th, 20190SDEROT, Israel — Israeli aircraft attacked a Hamas target in the Gaza Strip on Thursday after a Palestinian rocket strike, the Israeli military said, in the first serious cross border conflict since last month's border-fight surge.
A second rocket launched in the evening hit a house in the Israeli border town of Sderot but caused no...
May 20th, 20190On May 4, Israel launched a series of deadly airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip, prompting a response from various resistance groups. At least 25 Palestinians were killed and nearly 200 people wounded in the Israeli attacks. Four Israelis were also killed by Palestinian rockets.
The clashes were instigated by Israel, when the...
May 6th, 20190GAZA — An Egyptian-mediated ceasefire agreement was reached with Israel on Monday to end a weekend of violence in the Gaza Strip and Israel, a report from Reuters said.
“The ceasefire understanding will begin Monday 04:30 (01:30 GMT)” a Palestinian official familiar with the agreement said to the news agency.
The fighting was...
May 6th, 20190GAZA - After two sleepless days and nights of Israeli shelling and Palestinian rocket fire, Gazans on Monday faced a first day of Ramadan overshadowed by funerals and the grim task of pulling bodies from collapsed buildings.
As dawn brought a ceasefire of uncertain duration, few Palestinians in the impoverished coastal enclave were...
April 26th, 20190As the 300-foot spire of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris tragically came tumbling down on live television, my thoughts ventured to Nuseirat Refugee Camp, my childhood home in the Gaza Strip.
Then, also on television, I watched as a small bulldozer hopelessly clawed through the rubble of my neighborhood mosque. I grew up around that...
April 12th, 20190The current violence targeting Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails dates back to January 2. It was then that Israel’s public security minister, Gilad Erdan, declared that the “party is over.”
“Every so often, infuriating pictures appear of cooking in the terrorist wings. This party is coming to an end,” Erdan was quoted in...
February 16th, 20190Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of besieged Gaza to show their support for the democratically-elected government of Venezuela and its legitimate leader, President Nicolas Maduro.
Venezuela is struggling to defeat a coup attempt that is supported by the United States, Israel and many Western governments.
The...
December 3rd, 20180When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his army to carry out a limited operation in the besieged Gaza Strip on November 12, he certainly did not anticipate that his military adventure would destabilize his government and threaten the very survival of his right-wing coalition.
But it did, far more than the multiple...
December 2nd, 20180DEARBORN – The Palestinian struggle carries countless stories of suffering and injustice. Such is the case with Mohammed Abu Hussein, a young Palestinian boy who lost his right leg in June during the Great March of Return along the Gaza border against the Israeli occupation.
Mohammed is currently in Dearborn, where he will receive a...
November 16th, 20180GAZA — Ahmed Abu Saif struggles to maintain a straight face as he looks at the amorphous pile of rubble of what used to be a five-story building he owned.
The structure is one of the several civilian sites that have been flattened over the past 24 hours in Gaza as Israeli jets pounded the besieged and densely-populated coastal...
October 22nd, 20180The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, has made her post a “more glamorous” position than her predecessors — as President Trump described Haley’s 2-year term at the U.N., following her resignation announcement.
We may never know the nature of Haley’s purported “glamour” at the U.N., but we certainly know that,...
September 28th, 20180UNITED NATIONS — On Thursday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the United States to reverse its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and cuts in aid to the Palestinians, saying these had undermined the two-state solution to the conflict.
“With all of these decisions, this administration has reneged on all...
September 24th, 20180Like vultures, Israeli soldiers descended on Khan Al-Ahmar, on Sept. 14, recreating a menacing scene with which the residents of this small Palestinian village, located East of Jerusalem, are all-too familiar.
The strategic location of Khan Al-Ahmar makes the story behind the imminent Israeli demolition of the peaceful village unique...
September 10th, 20180The Israeli government wants to change the rules of the game entirely. With unconditional support from the Trump administration, Tel Aviv sees a golden opportunity to redefine what has, for decades, constituted the legal and political foundation for the so-called "Palestinian-Israeli conflict."
While President Trump’s foreign policy...
September 1st, 20180Hanan al-Khoudari, a Gaza resident, resorted to Facebook in a cry for help when Israeli authorities rejected her request to accompany her 3-year-old son, Louay, to his chemotherapy treatment in East Jerusalem.
The boy is suffering from an “aggressive soft tissue sarcoma.” Israeli authorities then justified their decision based on...
August 26th, 20180It is almost comical that recently Israel finally decided to release more than 10 tons of mail that it has prevented from reaching Palestinians in the West Bank, much of which was sent eight years ago. Not eight weeks or months, but years. In the U.S., many people become irritated when their Amazon packages arrive late on the third day,...
August 26th, 20180On Sunday August 12, news from Gaza was distressing: The Ministry of Health announced that it would no longer be able to treat cancer patients in the Israel-besieged Strip.
"Colon and lung cancer, as well as lymphoma patients, cannot be provided with the necessary therapy now," said Dr. Mohammed Abu Silmiya, director of Abdulaziz...
August 13th, 20180The father of 11-year-old Abdul Rahman Nofal contacted me, asking for help. His son was shot in the leg during Gaza's "Great March of Return" protests. The Strip's dilapidated health care system could not save the little boy's leg, as it was later amputated.
His father, Yamen, himself a young man from the Buraij Refugee Camp in...
July 13th, 20180GAZA — How can an artist capture the anger of a people when the most powerful politician in the world tries to discard their rights?
Mahmoud al-Moqayad may have succeeded in doing just that. After Donald Trump delivered a grave insult to Palestinians by announcing that the U.S. was recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,...
July 1st, 20180AMMAN/WASHINGTON — Four Arab states have backed the U.S. plan for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, regardless of the position of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, an Israeli newspaper reports.
The Israel Hayom daily interviewed officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan who...
June 23rd, 20180UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly condemned Israel last Wednesday for excessive use of force against Palestinian civilians and asked U.N. chief Antonio Guterres to recommend an “international protection mechanism” for occupied Palestinian territory.
The General Assembly adopted a resolution with 120 votes in favor,...
June 19th, 20180As the Arab and Muslim worlds were ending a month of blessed fasting, observing the most holy month in Islam and getting ready to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, there isn’t much to celebrate there— a region engulfed in bloodshed and complicated conflicts among brothers and neighbors.
In Gaza, a real massacre engulfing the besieged Strip...
June 15th, 20181What is taking place in Palestine is not a "conflict." We readily utilize the term but, in fact, the word "conflict" is misleading. It equates between oppressed Palestinians and Israel, a military power that stands in violation of numerous United Nations resolutions.
It is these ambiguous terminologies that allow the likes of United...
June 14th, 20180GAZA ― Israel’s killing of at least 125 Palestinians during protests at the Gaza border is casting a shadow in the enclave on its celebration of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
Economic hardship arising from years of blockades, conflict and internal political rivalries has also...
