Palestine News 24

If Americans Knew

2010-12-08T20:49:00.001+02:00

The Independent - Robert Fisk

2010-12-08T10:16:00.000+02:00

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Media Monitor

2010-12-07T20:44:00.000+02:00

Noam Chomsky

2010-12-07T10:47:00.000+02:00

The Truth Will Set You Free

2010-12-07T09:48:00.002+02:00

Uprooted Palestinians

2010-12-07T09:37:00.002+02:00

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Criminal State

2010-12-07T09:18:00.000+02:00

The Trench

2010-12-07T08:56:00.001+02:00

Palestine Chronicle Articles

2010-12-07T08:43:00.000+02:00

Four Palestinians wounded, one seriously, as settlers attack Pale

2009-06-01T10:42:00.002+03:00

http://www.imemc.org/article/60607

Four Palestinians wounded, one seriously, as settlers
attack Palestinians north of the W. Bank

Monday June 01, 2009 09:02 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC &
Agencies

Palestinian sources reported on Monday morning
that four Palestinians were wounded, one seriously, after being attacked by a
group of extremist settlers at the Kidumim junction on the Nablus – Qalqilia
road.

Ghassan Daghlas, in charge of the settlements file at the Palestinian
Authority, stated that approximately at 5:30 a.m. four Palestinians were on
their way to work when they were attacked by a group of extremist Israeli
settlers.

Palestinian medical sources stated that resident Ali Al Sidda, 44, from Jeet
village near Nablus, was seriously wounded in his head and was moved to Al Arabi
Specialized Hospital in Nablus.

Mohammad Khalid, 32, suffered moderate wounds, while residents
Shaker Sidda, and Ahmad Sidda suffered minor wounds. All are from Jayyous
village near Qalqilia.

Daghlas demanded the international community and international human rights
groups to intervene and put an end to the ongoing attacks carried out by the
settlers and Israeli soldiers.

Israeli military launches largest-ever military exercise

2009-06-01T10:15:00.001+03:00

http://www.imemc.org/article/60608

Israeli military launches largest-ever military
exercise

Monday June 01, 2009 09:37 by Saed Bannoura - 1 of International
Middle East Media Center Editorial Group

On Sunday, Israeli forces across the country
began a five-day military exercise called 'Turning Point 3' to simulate a
three-front war with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Syrian army.
The drill also includes training in how to repress the Palestinian population in
the West Bank and inside Israel during the three-front scenario.

According to the Israeli military, the training exercise is
meant to prepare the Israeli military and the entire population for a regional
war. Deputy Israeli Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said on Israeli army radio,
"We are holding exercises to meet the threats as we have experienced them in the
past few years and as we may face them in the future."

The exercise comes in the midst of increasing Israeli rhetoric against Iran,
and a statement just last week by the Israeli military that the Lebanese militia
group Hezbollah now has possession of “more rockets than it did before the 2006
war” -- although that statement was not backed up with any evidence.

At the start of the weekly Israeli Cabinet meeting, Israeli Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu assured the international community that the drill is not
connected with any of the recent events, saying, "We are required to defend
Israel, its cities, various installations, from the possibility of attacks by
missiles, rockets or other weapons. I think the fact that Israel is preparing
more from exercise to exercise and is capable of better protecting its citizens
decreases the chance that we'll have to use these tools."

Last year Israeli armed forces held a joint exercise demonstrating their
ability to fly the exact distance to Iran with planes carrying air-to-surface
missiles.

France is ignoring EU rules on arms s...

2009-06-01T10:08:00.001+03:00

France is ignoring EU rules on arms sales to Israel, new
study reports

Saturday May 30, 2009 14:35 by Katherine Orwell - 1 of
International Middle East Media Center Editorial Group

The French arms trade with Israel breaks the rules that the European Union
has set out for the defense industry, according to a new study brought out this
week. Between 2003 and 2007 France licensed for more than 446 million euros for
arms exports to Israel, making France the largest EU supplier of weapons to
Israel.

The EU code for the defense industry forbids arms sales in cases where they
may exacerbate regional tensions or are used in violations of human rights.

Patrice Bouveret from the French Center for Research on Peace and Conflicts
in Lyon dismissed the claims from the French government that the "weapons" in
question are generally only components of military goods instead of complete
weapons systems. "Even if they are only components, they are used directly by
the Israeli army," he added.

Amnesty International reported in February that after the Gaza war ceased
electrical components were found in the ruins of buildings Israel destroyed,
that had "Made in France" written on them.

Marcel Khalife and the El-Mayadine En...

2009-06-01T09:54:00.001+03:00

Marcel Khalife and the El-Mayadine Ensemble, a
Concert for Peace and Humanity

On the 30^th of June Lebanese composer Marcel
Khalife and the Al-Mayadine ensemble will be taking part in a concert in Vienna
as part of UNRWA’s 60^th anniversary events.

Marcel Khalife is a world renowned composer, singer and oud
player. His works commonly combine traditional Arabic music with western
elements. Some of his best known works are based on the poetry of the great
contemporary poet Mahmoud Darwish. Through his works he seeks to renew Arabic
song, to break its stereotypes, and to advance the culture of the society that
surrounds it. In 1999 he was awarded the Palestine award for music. In turn, he
contributed the financial portion of the award to the National Conservatory of
Music at Birzeit University. In 2005 he was named a UNESCO Artist for Peace for
his artistic achievement and humanitarian contributions.

The Al Mayadeen Ensemble was formed in 1976. The Al-Mayadine
Ensemble reflects the character of Marcel Khalifé’s world music, the musicians
come from Arabic Countries, Australia, Macedonia, France, the USA and
Austria.

The concert will be a unique event with a varied programme,
featuring duets between Marcel Khalife, and artists such as the Koehne quartet
and Peter Herbert, and a number of new compositions.

The major sponsor of the event is OFID (the OPEC Fund for
International Development), which has its headquarters in Vienna. The concert is
held under the patronage of H.E. Federal President Dr. Heinz Fischer and H. E.
UN-Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who will address the audience of this unique
evening through a video message.

Concert Flyer

For more information on the concert please go to
www.marcel-in-vienna.com

For tickets please go to www.oeticket.com

At a breaking point: 'Young Freud in Gaza'

2009-05-31T11:09:00.001+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10561.shtml
At a breaking point: 'Young Freud in Gaza'
Maymanah Farhat, The Electronic Intifada, 29 May
2009

A scene from Young Freud in Gaza.

In addition to a long list of films exploring
themes of social injustice and conflict, Swedish filmmaker PeÅ Holmquist has
directed several on Palestine. Young Freud in Gaza (2008), his most
recent documentary on the subject, enters the recesses of Palestinian society as
it copes with life under Israeli occupation. Directed with Holmquist's longtime
partner, Beirut-born Armenian filmmaker and journalist Suzanne Khardalian, the
60-minute film follows Ayed, a 27-year-old psychologist working for the
Palestinian Authority's Clinic for Mental Health in northern Gaza. The only
field psychologist in the area, Ayed frequently makes home visits, treating
patients of all ages, from diverse backgrounds.

The film chronicles his
consultations from 2006 to 2008, as the psychologist and his community are
surrounded by crippling economic sanctions, violent clashes between the Hamas
and Fatah factions and frequent Israeli missile attacks. The film not only
accompanies Ayed as he administers counseling sessions but also when he is at
home with family and friends. A looming element that is often present is the
outcome of Hamas' win of the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections and the
subsequent changes Gaza is made to endure. This has a profound affect on Ayed
and his patients as they experience significant backlash from Israel and witness
growing internal political divisions. In the span of time covered in the film,
Gaza's state plummets, as its civil infrastructure is debilitated and violence
increases.

Despite this grim reality, Ayed remains dedicated to treating
his patients and works to gain their trust from the onset. Even the most guarded
and skeptical individuals, such as maimed Hamas fighters, put their faith in him
once their treatment begins. From chronic depression to eating disorders, Ayed's
patients experience a range of mental health issues. A common variable in their
stories, however, is the Israeli occupation and the significant physical and
psychological damage it has caused to Gaza's residents.

Abed is a young
man who was severely injured in a failed suicide mission in Israel. Suffering
from partial memory loss, Ayed attempts to help him remember the events of that
day as a way of relieving stress and alleviating physical pain. As his story
unfolds, we learn that he barely escaped death after being chased by Israeli
authorities.

Another case involves
Inas, a teenage girl who is severely traumatized by a childhood experience.
Having come upon the body of a classmate killed by Israeli fire near her school,
Inas has suffered from depression and anxiety throughout her adolescence. Ayed
attempts to counsel Inas on dealing with her mental state, while struggling to
involve her parents who have grown impatient with the lengthy road to recovery.
Some of the most telling scenes of the film occur when he lectures Inas' parents
on the importance of visiting the clinic for further treatment. Stern and
unyielding, he admonishes them for their lack of commitment and the effects it
has on Inas. It is here that we witness one of the many challenges facing a
psychologist working with few resources and little community support. As Ayed
confirms, Gaza is badly in need of "a million psychologists."

Often
frustrated and let down, he eventually finds himself torn between continuing his
practice and enduring its psychological toll or resigning from his position in
search of peace of mind.

Young Freud in Gaza provides a
much-needed look into a community struggling to survive amidst abject poverty
and brutal assaults as it resides under the shadows of collective trauma. With
the international blockade leaving the territory virtually cut off from the
outside world, the documentary not only offers a glimpse into the private lives
of Palestinians in Gaza, it serves as an important historical
record.

Grounded in the conversations that occur during Ayed's
counseling sessions, the film works to draw the viewer in as though they are
witnessing these exchanges firsthand. The directors are physically absent as
Ayed narrates scenes, conducts interviews or goes about his day. During some of
his most vulnerable moments, namely when he begins to doubt the effectiveness of
his work amidst deadly factional violence, the camera serves as a confessional
of sorts.

This intimate setting is also created by the camera's close
proximity to its subjects and the capturing of the interior spaces of daily
life. From Ayed's medical office to modest dwellings in refugee camps, the
viewer is brought into Gaza's internal realms. Yet at all times the film evokes
the external forces that deeply impact residents. Shots of a hovering Israeli
surveillance blimp, news footage and scenes showing outbreaks of fighting among
Hamas and Fatah forces serve as constant reminders of the grave environment that
lies just beyond the safe haven Ayed creates for his patients.

Although
informative and engaging, Young Freud in Gaza is perhaps best
understood by viewers familiar with the contemporary history of Palestine and
the Israeli occupation. Lacking an overall historical context, the film assumes
the viewer possess some knowledge of recent events in the occupied territories,
labeling certain scenes with simple titles and little explanation. Clues to the
details of these events can be found mainly when Ayed references them in
passing, such as when he explains to a patient that the clinic's shortage of
antidepressants is a result of the Israeli-led blockade. More details on the
cause of the confrontations between factions, which dominate the film, would
provide a more comprehensive approach to representing the situation in Gaza
during that time.

Lengthier accounts of each patient's treatment and
their progress would have also enhanced the film, as their stories are seemingly
incomplete. In the end one is left wishing that the filmmakers would have
incorporated more footage so as to expand their narrative. Given Israel's
vicious attack on Gaza earlier this year, however, Young Freud in Gaza
nevertheless speaks with a profound urgency.

Maymanah Farhat
specializes in modern and contemporary Arab art.

Refugee Stories: Face Your Fears to Conquer them

2009-05-31T10:25:00.001+03:00

http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/stories/2009/face_your_fears_may09.html

Refugee Stories: Face Your Fears to Conquer them

Face Your Fears to Conquer them – a motto for life that young
Ibrahim Ata El Najjar, a 9-year-old boy from Jabalia Camp in northern Gaza, was
not able to embrace after witnessing a number of traumatic events in his young
life.

First, there was the killing of a close friend of the family
during the internecine fighting between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza. This event
turned Ibrahim from a normal child to another one quite suddenly, unable to cope
with the size of the violence and the fear in his young mind.

Ibrahim was unwilling to be alone, or even to leave the house.

"Ibrahim was a normal child and used to have high marks in
school. He completely changed," says his mother. "He became fragile, was afraid
of the dark and afraid to be alone. He even refused to go to the bathroom by
himself. His father or one of his brothers always had to accompany him. At
night, he couldn’t sleep and had nightmares. He was scared that a ghost would
take him to make him a ‘martyr’. He would bit his nails to the flesh."

Ibrahim’s father, Atta Al Najjar, was greatly distressed by the
situation and decided to speak to Mohammed El Seidi, a counselor hired to assist
students at UNRWA schools under the Community Mental Health Programme
established in 2002.

"Ibrahim was so open and frank with the counselor; he told him
things that I did not know. The counselor is in contact with me and advises us
on how to deal with Ibrahim to help him overcome his fears," says Ibrahim’s
father, Atta El Najjar.

"It was the first semester of the school year when the father
came and told me about his son’s behaviour, his dropping grades," recalls El
Seidi. "After three sessions Ibrahim startied opening up to me and expressed his
fears. I worked not only with Ibrahim but with his parents as well, as I felt
the atmosphere at home contributed to Ibrahim’s condition."

As Ibrahim’s situation was improving following the counsellor’s intervention, a
second shock shattered Ibrahim’s life. During Israel's latest war on Gaza the
house where Ibrahim and his family sought shelter sustained a direct missile
hit, dismembering one of his uncles and severely injuring another – right
in front of Ibrahim.

‘Ibrahim became introverted again and his fears and distress
increased," his father said. "We returned to point zero".

However, he is confident that with proper help from the school
counselor, Ibrahim will come through this traumatic event in time. "Having this
programme helped my son a lot. Of course, it helps many of the children and
their families who face such horrible scenes by giving them advice on how to
deal with our children’s fears and distress".

The Community and Mental Health Programme (CMHP) was
established in the occupied Palestinian territories in 2002 in response to the need for specialist support
for refugee children and youth and their families who were living in difficult
and often extremely violent circumstances. This intervention has been funded
through the emergency appeal since 2007 in Gaza and 2008 in the West Bank. The
scale of the recent conflict in Gaza has exposed the entire civilian population
there to extreme events on an unprecedented level. In response, UNRWA is
doubling the number of 200 counselors currently working in its Gaza schools to
400. The total budget need for Gaza identified under the QRP is US$ 6.7 million
for the hiring of additional counselors, the purchase of counseling materials
and equipment as well as the possible erection of temporary counseling rooms.

Pakistan: UN agencies join forces to provide shelter to conflict

2009-05-31T10:12:00.001+03:00

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30960&Cr=Pakistan&Cr1=

Pakistan: UN agencies join forces to provide shelter to
conflict displaced

A displaced Pakistani girl carries a bucket of rice as her
sister follows in Yar Hussain camp.

29 May 2009 –
Two United Nations agencies have joined forces to
provide shelter and supplies to hundreds of thousands of people displaced by
fighting in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

UN-HABITAT, the agency tasked with
ensuring adequate shelter for all, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) said
they had begun the distribution of the first batch of 5,000 tents for the most
vulnerable families identified in Mardan and Swabi districts.

UN-HABITAT also has begun distributing mattresses, blankets, buckets, kitchen
sets and jerry cans to some 4,500 families staying in schools in Mardan.

UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond said
the agency had identified two potential sites for new camps in the area and
received permission from the local authorities to start the development of one
of them.

The violence, which broke out on 2 May, has driven more than 1.9 million
people from their homes, adding to some 500,000 forced to flee fighting in the
area last year. Some 10 per cent of the 2.4 million internally displaced persons
(IDPs) in the area are living in camps. The remainder are seeking shelter with
relatives or in rented accommodations and public buildings.

“Host families have seen their households double and even triple overnight as
they've opened their doors to provide refuge to the displaced people,” said
UNHCR Pakistan Representative Guenet Guebre-Christo. “We are providing tents to
particularly needy families which can be pitched within the grounds of their
hosts to help alleviate crowded conditions.”

Calling the scale of the displacement of civilians fleeing clashes between
the Government and militants in north-west Pakistan “unprecedented,” John
Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, has urged
donors to fund the $543 million appeal launched by the UN and its partners. As
of yesterday, it was only 21 per cent funded.

“Our view is that this is not remotely sufficient,” he said, adding that the
world body and relief agencies will not be able to sustain their operations for
more than another month unless they receive more funds.

The UN, he added, had stepped up efforts to provide assistance in key sectors
such as shelter, health, education, water and sanitation, by delivering
latrines, food and other supplies, as well as building a dozen new camps for the
displaced people as numbers rise.

Paul Garwood of the World Health Organization (WHO) told reporters in Geneva
today that the displaced people faced major health risks, including outbreaks of
communicable disease due to inadequate shelter, physical and mental stress,
inadequate water, sanitation and hygienic conditions, exposure to extreme
weather, low vaccination coverage and inadequate provision of healthcare.

“If there is no proper and timely assistance provided, the morbidity and
mortality rates could certainly increase,” he said.

UN-HABITAT is providing hygiene kits and latrines and supporting minor
repairs of shelters and boundary walls, as well as providing locally procured
alternative shelter kits and assisting with emergency repairs of community
facilities such as water hand pumps and sanitation in local mosques.

“Displaced people residing with host families from the previous caseload and
the new influx constitute the majority of the displaced population, yet they
receive negligible support,” said UN-HABITAT Country Programme Manager Siamak
Moghaddam.

“Our surveys show that they endure severely inadequate shelter and living
conditions, including widespread overcrowding and poor sanitation. We are trying
to reach the most vulnerable internally displaced persons with our intervention,
including this joint effort with UNHCR.”

The joint initiative is part of a longer-term plan to assist in the safe and
dignified return of the displaced people to their homes, UN-HABITAT said.

PRESS RELEASE

2009-05-30T13:25:00.001+03:00

PRESS RELEASE

Muslim Association of Britain

MAB Urges Communities to vote in MEP Elections

The Muslim Association of Britain is alarmed by “MPs expenses” and is concerned how it can be used by the far right for the coming European elections. The MP’s allowance system has loop holes for sure and everybody holding this high ranking position within the state should be always cautious of any behaviour or transactions which can not only damage the MP him or herself but also it can put an atmosphere of mistrust in the House Of Commons and all other related state institutions.

We urge the Muslims and all other voters not to express their dissatisfaction with the main parties by making a “Protest vote” in the coming European Election by voting for far right racist small parties who use the present climate of mistrust to capitalise in the number of votes for their racist and extremist agendas.

The Chairperson of The Muslim Association of Britain Mr. A. Al-rawy urges its members and every citizen to exercise their rights of vote by coming in big numbers on the 4th June and vote for the candidates who will help Britain have a positive impact on the whole of Europe and share its social and community cohesion strategies with the whole of Europe by improving Justice, equality for All regardless people’s ethnic, cultural, racial and religious backgrounds. He added by saying: “We need to stand together and united to face the economical challenges, to improve education, health services and world peace as well as to stop the extreme right agenda in its track”.

He finally said: “I appeal to the Muslim community in United Kingdom and in Europe to go and exercise their rights (see European Muslim Charter) to vote to select the Members of European Parliament who will work for the benefit and welfare of all people in Europe ”.

Gaylard: The Israeli siege thwarts UN efforts to help Gazans

2009-05-30T12:00:00.001+03:00

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7aND1H%2bRacZKdexbhDpyWKCPMmA5Bhddfzhi445LOOQmHY%2fkYn19ZibHgGDAwYPUtcM5HbdQs5F22JoWtpGqKwOUVf4zzamHGKRwtrB1ahaY%3d

Gaylard: The Israeli siege thwarts UN efforts to
help Gazans

NEW YORK, (PIC)-- UN humanitarian coordinator Maxwell
Gaylard stated Thursday that the continued Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip
hinders the efforts made by the UN and its partners to help the Palestinians in
the post-war Strip.

Gaylard told a news conference in New York that the
UN is ready to move forward with reconstruction and other efforts as soon as
Israeli restrictions on the access of vital materials are lifted.

He recalled that the Israeli war destroyed about
4,000 homes and caused damages to the same number of homes, adding that the
donor countries made pledges of several billion dollars for Gaza reconstruction,
but no work has been carried out so far.

As for the West Bank, Gaylard also said that there
will be no economic development in the West Bank until movement and access is
eased, adding that there are some 630 barricades impeding movement there.

In another context, the government committee for
breaking the siege said that the European "Hope" convoy handed aid to the Noor
society for the blind affiliated with the UNRWA in Gaza.

The committee added that the delegation of the "Hope"
convoy left Gaza after they handed medical aid to the hospitals of Shifa and
Nasser, visited a number of humanitarian and charitable institutions and met
with prisoners’ families and war victims.

Head of the convoy Fernando Rossi had stated, during
a visit to the Wafa rehabilitation hospital, that the efforts to help the
besieged Gaza people would continue, asserting that the convoy members would
leave Gaza, but they would do a lot for Gaza upon their arrival in their
countries.

West Bank water access mired in politics

2009-05-30T11:43:00.001+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10547.shtml
West Bank water access mired in politics
Arwa Aburawa, The Electronic Intifada, 26 May 2009

Workers from the Israeli water authority backed by armed soldiers take water samples in the occupied West Bank town of Qalqiliya. (Khaleel Reash/MaanImages)

Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) is calling for the replacement of committees, which control the West Bank's water, for having "failed both sides" with "catastrophic" consequences.

"It is time to replace the failed mechanism of the Joint Water Committees established under Oslo [the peace accords of the mid-1990s], with an institution where Palestinians and Israelis are true partners in both water supply and management responsibilities," said Nader Khateeb, the Palestinian Director of FoEME. This denouncement follows a recently published World Bank report which also found that the Joint Water Committees (JWC) "fall short of the needs of the Palestinian people."

Established under the Oslo accords, the JWC was set up specifically to oversee management of shared aquifers and to ensure that the West Bank and Gaza Strip received extra water accorded to them under the agreement. Palestinians and Israelis were intended to be equal partners working towards integrated water management and infrastructure. In reality, however, the JWC simply entrenched Israeli influence over the West Bank's water resources and introduced a complex permit system that has severely limited water development projects ever since.

Alice Gray, a former water consultant in the West Bank, said that the most significant impact of the Israeli occupation on the Palestinian environment has been the suspension of development. "My job at the time was basically to tell people all the reasons that they probably wouldn't be able to implement their project," she explained. "The reason that they [projects] are not built is because in order to build them under the Oslo accord, you need permission from the Joint Water Committees -- that's one big problem already."

Out of $121 million worth of Palestinian projects presented to JWC in 2001-2008, only half (or $60.4 million) were approved and only a third have been implemented or begun implementation. The World Bank also reported that 106 water projects and 12 large-scale waste-water projects are still awaiting JWC approval, some of them since 1999.

These startling statistics are all the more unsettling when compared with Israeli-proposed projects for development in the West Bank, where all but one have been swiftly approved by the JWC. Decisions made by the JWC are in theory based on consensual agreement between the two parties, yet the World Bank's report openly acknowledges that Israel alone has virtual veto power on all water issues.

In the West Bank, when plans are being drawn up for vital water infrastructure such as waste-water plants, the only space that is generally available is in Area C (which is 60 percent of the West Bank and is under total Israeli military control). So finding enough land that is at an "acceptable" distance from walls, checkpoints and even future Israeli settlements is another obstacle that projects need to overcome. Even when this condition is met, other complications with Israeli settlements arise.

Water consultant Alice Gray said, "When the Palestinians go to the Israeli authorities to ask for a permit to build a sewage treatment plant for their town, the Israelis say sure, but you also have to network and treat the sewage of the Israeli settlements."

She added, "The Palestinian position then generally would be no, they are not happy with that because if you build infrastructure for settlements then you are contributing to their entrenchment -- it's like admitting that they have a right to be there. So politically it's a nightmare."

Overcoming these constraints has proven so difficult that only one in seven proposed waste-water treatment plants is actually operational, and consequently only 31 percent of Palestinians are connected to a sewage network.

The underdevelopment of the West Bank's water infrastructure has a direct impact on the daily lives of Palestinians who face high costs and low quality water resources. Overall, Palestinians spend around eight percent of household expenditure on water, which is twice the globally-accepted standard. In addition, the poorest spend up to one-sixth of their household budget or more on providing clean water for their family.

By regional standards Palestinians have among the lowest access to fresh water, forcing Palestinian communities to engage in unlicensed drilling simply to obtain drinking water. The Israeli Water Authority has used its de facto role as regulator to prevent Palestinians drilling for water, despite growing demand from Palestinian consumers. Meanwhile, Israel has increased its own off-take from the aquifer above the agreed levels. This practice allows Israeli citizens, including settlers in the West Bank, to consume four times more fresh water per capita as Palestinians living in the West Bank.

The World Bank also found that although Palestinian agriculture accounts for a bigger share of economic output and overall employment in comparison to Israel, the Palestinian per capita water budget for agriculture is one-fifth of Israel's.

"You are dealing with a situation of vast inequality," Gray asserts. "In terms of the water situation, it is not experienced in the same way by Israelis and Palestinians ... and that creates a very different scenario for those Israeli farmers who have access to subsidized water and so never have to deal with the situation in the same way as Palestinian farmers."

As it stands, irrigated agriculture is an important economic sector in Palestine, contributing about 12 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and employing 117,000 people, according to the World Bank. Improved water resources would enable agriculture to play a key economic, social and political role in rebuilding the Palestinian economy. The World Bank's report, "West Bank and Gaza: Assessment of Restrictions on Palestinian Water Sector Development," states that "the cost to the economy of foregone opportunity in irrigated agriculture is significant, with upper bound preliminary estimates that could be as high as 10 percent of GDP and 110,000 jobs."

Taken together, the implications caused by restrictions from the JWC are hard to ignore. Not only is it limiting the development of vital infrastructure within Palestine, it's reducing the Palestinians' quality of life and crippling economic growth. As Khateeb, the FoEME Palestinian Director, explained, "After 15 years of JWC failure ... It's urgent to free the water sector and water needs of both peoples from the conflict."

British universities union moves towards boycott

2009-05-30T11:40:00.001+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10560.shtml
British universities union moves towards boycott
Press release, PACBI, 28 May 2009

Once again, the membership of the University and College Union (UCU) has not let Palestinians down. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) salutes our British colleagues for their steadfast and principled support for the cause of justice and peace in Palestine and for adopting, at the UCU's annual congress on 27 May 2009, significant steps in the direction of applying effective pressure on Israel and holding it accountable for its colonial and apartheid policies which violate international law and fundamental human rights. Coming four months after the end of Israel's brutal war of aggression on the occupied Gaza Strip, the UCU motions on Palestine could not be more appropriate or relevant, emphasizing the need to end Israel's criminal impunity through pressure on it and on institutions complicit in its violation of international law and fundamental human rights.

The UCU's recognition of "the complicity of Israeli educational institutions in colonization and military preparation," its belief "that international pressure is necessary to force Israel to abide by international law," and its determination to "renew urgently its call to members to reflect on the moral and political appropriateness of collaboration with Israeli educational institutions" as well as to urge "branches to discuss prior to Congress 2010 the Palestinian call for a boycott, disinvestment and sanctions campaign" are the strongest indicators to date that the union has taken another significant step forward in the consistent direction of ending business-as-usual with Israeli academic institutions.

Several of the UCU Congress resolutions on Palestine amount to a clear decision to challenge the notion that Israel's complicit institutions, including the academy, can be "normal" partners of any self-respecting British institution. Indeed, it has to be recognized by academics the world over that Israeli universities, in particular, are part and parcel of the structures of domination and oppression of the Palestinian people. Far from being neutral, Israeli academic institutions are all state funded; they have played a direct and indirect role in promoting, justifying, developing or otherwise abetting the state's racist policies and persistent violations of human rights and international law. It is significant that not only have Israeli academic institutions failed to condemn the state's colonial policies and practices and the longstanding siege of Palestinian education, they have facilitated and enabled the collaboration of their academic departments, faculty members and researchers with the Israeli military-security establishment, above all in the occupation regime, in flagrant violation of the principles of the independence of universities and academics.

Moreover, by welcoming "the campaign amongst students ... for disinvestment from arms companies" trading with Israel; calling for "ending of [Israeli] apartheid;" demanding that "the British government bans arms sales and economic support for Israel;" calling for "a ban on imports of all goods from the illegal Israeli settlements in the [Occupied Palestinian Territories];" and insisting that "Israel [is] tried for human rights violations," the UCU has unequivocally decided to contribute in an effective and morally consistent manner to Palestinian and international efforts aimed at ending Israel's impunity and holding it accountable for its atrocities and grave violations of Palestinian rights.

PACBI especially welcomes the UCU congress decision to host an international, inter-union conference for supporters of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) this coming autumn "to investigate the lawful implementation of the strategy, including an option of institutional boycotts." Convening such a forum will be a crucial opportunity for union members to engage publicly with the issue of academic boycott and to have a chance to openly discuss and debate the rationale for such an institutional boycott and the consistency of its implementation with the law, countering attempts by Israel lobby groups to interpret the law in the most anti-democratic and draconian form with the intention of silencing debate.

The historic significance of the UCU membership's vote to overwhelmingly endorse BDS cannot be overshadowed by the Union's decision to declare the relevant resolution void due to legal advice. PACBI is quite disappointed that legal threats are being used by the Israel lobby to intimidate academics supporting the boycott and to curtail freedom of expression. We recognize that groups opposed to the Israel boycott have resorted to such anti-democratic measures after their resounding failure to stop the spread of support for the academic boycott, particularly in the United Kingdom. The argument they repeat, that a boycott of Israeli universities would be somehow "discriminatory," is absolutely erroneous and intentionally deceptive, particularly because it accuses boycott supporters of targeting Israeli academics, disingenuously ignoring the fact that the PACBI call for boycott has consistently targeted Israeli academic and cultural institutions, not individuals, and is based on universalist values that reject all forms of discrimination and racism, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

We sincerely hope that the UCU will soon follow the admirable example of the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC), which resolved at its meeting in April 2009 to support the steadily spreading BDS campaign against Israel.

This genuine expression of solidarity with Palestine by British academic trade unionists is particularly timely in light of the recent Israeli war of aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza. During this lethal assault, during which many well-documented Israeli war crimes were committed, 1,440 Palestinians were murdered (of whom over 400 were children), 5,380 were injured, and scores of institutions -- including a university and several schools -- and residential neighborhoods were partially or completely destroyed. Israel's diplomatic immunity and status as a state above the law of nations must be challenged. Academic and cultural boycotts are effective measures available to world civil society to indicate its intolerance of oppression and as a means to bear pressure upon Israel to cease its campaign of ethnic cleansing against and colonial control over the Palestinian people. The 2004 PACBI call for boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, like the Palestinian civil society's widely endorsed call for boycott, divestment and sanctions in 2005, is based on the same moral principle embodied in the international civil society campaign against the apartheid regime in South Africa: people of conscience must take a stand against oppression and use all the means of civil resistance available to bring it to an end.

The UCU has proven beyond doubt that effective solidarity with the oppressed is the most morally and politically sound contribution to the struggle to end oppression and to promote human rights as well as a just and peaceful future for all.

BBC offers Question Time apology

2009-05-30T11:20:00.001+03:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8074944.stm

BBC offers Question Time apology

The BBC said Question Time has a 'lively
debate'

The BBC has offered to apologise to the Muslim Council of
Britain after airing claims the organisation encouraged the killing of British
troops.

The comments were made by the former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore on
Thursday's edition of Question Time.

Mr Moore spoke about the Islamic protests which disrupted a UK soldiers'
homecoming parade in March.

No final settlement has been reached but the BBC has accepted that the
comments were unfair.

Mr Moore said the Muslim Council of Britain had been reluctant to condemn the
killing and kidnapping of Britain soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and claimed
the organisation thought such activities were "a good thing".

The Muslim Council of Britain strongly criticised the remarks and demanded an
apology.

In a statement, the BBC said Question Time always had a lively and
wide-ranging debate and this was one of its strengths.

It went on: "On occasion, this results in unfairness to individuals who
aren't there to put their view and this is one of those occasions."

Israeli strikes threaten Egyptian border towns

2009-05-30T11:17:00.001+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10559.shtml
Israeli strikes threaten Egyptian border towns

Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa Al-Omrani, The
Electronic Intifada, 28 May 2009

CAIRO (IPS) -
Residents along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip are still awaiting
compensation for property damaged by air strikes during Israel's recent
onslaught against the Hamas-run enclave.

"The Egyptian government wasn't
responsible for the damage, which came entirely as a result of Israel's assault
on Gaza," Governor of North Sinai Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha told IPS. "The
situation, therefore, is complicated."

During Israel's three-week assault
during 27 December through 18 January, tens of thousands of houses in the Gaza
Strip were damaged by air strikes and artillery, and approximately 1,500 people
were killed. Egyptian territory was not immune from the devastation: over the
course of the campaign, the 14-kilometer frontier zone between Egypt and the
embattled Gaza Strip also suffered hundreds of Israeli air
strikes.

According to Israeli officials, strikes targeted tunnels used
for smuggling weapons into Gaza from Egypt.

"During the attack, 86 homes
on the border were seriously damaged as a direct result of Israeli bombardment,"
Khalil Gabr, a leading member of the leftist Tegammu Party in the border city
Rafah told IPS. "A good deal of agricultural land was also
scorched."

More than just property suffered. On 11 January, several
people in Rafah, which straddles the border between Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and
the Gaza Strip, were injured by flying shrapnel from air strikes targeting the
city's Palestinian side.

At the time, official statements suggested that
local families might be compensated by the Egyptian government for damaged
property. But local sources say no reparations have been forthcoming.

"In
the immediate wake of the assault, the Governorate of North Sinai found that
hundreds of homes and large tracts of farmland had been badly damaged, sparking
debate in parliament about reparations," Hatem al-Bulk, local journalist and
political activist told IPS. "But to date, no remuneration has been paid
out.

"The North Sinai governor recommended paying compensation, but the
idea was never approved by Cairo," added al-Bulk, a resident of al-Arish,
located some 40 kilometers to the west of Rafah.

Shousha confirmed that
the issue of reparations remained up in the air.

"After the assault, the
ministry of population made a survey of homes in Rafah that had been damaged,"
he said. "But beyond this, no other steps have been taken in terms of
reimbursement."

"Compensation could possibly come from a source other
than the Egyptian government -- an option that the foreign ministry is currently
working on," Shousha added. "Regardless of the source of funds, though, the
issue will take time."

According to Gabr, the chances of a payout by the
government are slim. "Even if the state does provide local people compensation,
it will only be token reimbursement -- nothing substantial."

Gabr went on
to accuse the government of harboring a longstanding desire to move residents
away from the flashpoint frontier zone.

"In late 2007, certain officials
hinted at plans to move households to a minimum distance of three kilometers
from the Gaza border," he said. "But after angry demonstrations by local
residents and clashes with police, the authorities backtracked and said they had
no such intentions."

"And since the Israeli assault on Gaza, fresh rumors
have surfaced of plans to build a 'New Rafah' not far from the old one, in which
long-suffering Rafah residents would be encouraged to settle," Gabr
added.

Shousha, however, was quick to dismiss the idea.

"Talk of a
'New Rafah' has not come up for discussion; no decision on the matter has been
taken," he said. "But after the recent assault on Gaza, some local residents
have begun looking for land on which to build homes at a safe distance from the
border.

"The residents of Rafah, whether tenants or landowners, are free
to leave the area and settle elsewhere," Shousha stressed. "This would not be an
unreasonable solution."

According to local reports, the area continues to
be subject to intermittent Israeli air strikes. "After a lull in March and
April, strikes resumed on 1 and 2 May, causing the windows of nearby homes to
shatter, and roofs to collapse," said Gabr. "Rafah residents -- men, women and
children -- are living in a perpetual state of fear, thinking they might be
killed at any moment."

"Many have left, or are preparing to leave the
city," added Gabr, who recently sent his wife and children to stay with
relatives in Sheik Zuweid City, some 10 kilometers to the west of
Rafah.

On Tuesday and Wednesday last week (19 and 20 May), the border
area was again subject to a number of air strikes launched by Israeli F-16
warplanes. "Local people are being terrorized with every new round of strikes,"
said al-Bulk.

Residents also complain of ramped up security restrictions
in the area by the Egyptian authorities.

"In the last four months, Rafah
has been transformed into a militarized zone, with civilians forbidden to walk
the streets of the city -- except the main street -- after 10pm," said Gabr.
"Between the frequent bombardments and new security restrictions, Rafah is fast
on its way to becoming a ghost town."

West Bank rights violations on the rise

2009-05-30T10:33:00.001+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10564.shtml
West Bank rights violations on the rise
Mel Frykberg, The Electronic Intifada, 29 May 2009

Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank. (Mamoun
Wazwaz/MaanImages)

RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - "I heard
voices, I turned around to look, and saw a group of Israeli settlers assaulting
my brother Hammad," says Abdallah Wahadin, 82, a Palestinian farmer from Beit
Ummar near the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

"Three of them
surrounded me, while a fourth threw a rock at the back of my head. Lots of blood
ran down onto my clothes. Other settlers then joined them," Wahadin told the
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

Wahadin and his brother Hammad, 72,
had been farming their land, which produces olives, almonds and grapes, near the
illegal Israeli settlement of Bat Ayin, when they were attacked on their way
home. Their land in Beit Ummar is near Hebron, about 30 kilometers south of
Jerusalem.

Hammad Abdallah was taken to a local hospital where he
received 10 stitches for a head wound and treatment for chest
injuries.

Settler attacks against Palestinian civilians, and the
occasional retaliatory attacks by Palestinians continue to dominate media
headlines on an almost daily basis.

The UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported that an increase in settler attacks, as
well as Israeli military raids, are part of an overall deterioration in the
humanitarian situation in the West Bank.

"During April four Palestinians,
including two boys, were killed by [the Israeli army] and another 145 were
injured by Israeli soldiers and settlers. The number of Palestinians injured
rose by 40 percent compared with the 2008 monthly average," the report
says.

"We have noticed a significant increase in the incidents of both
settler and soldier violence against Palestinian civilians since the new Israeli
government took power at the beginning of the year," says Ronen Shimoni from
B'Tselem.

"This is probably related to an increase in settlement activity
in the West Bank as the rightist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
tries to establish facts on the ground," Shimoni told IPS.

The
expropriation of Palestinian land for enlargement of settlements has proceeded
at an accelerated rate since Netanyahu took office. New settlements, and the
settler-only bypass roads which service them, are being built.

The full
extent of settler violence against Palestinian civilians is uncertain as many
cases go unreported.

"Only a small number of complaints is investigated
by the Israeli authorities," says Lior Yavne, rights group Yesh Din's research
director.

"Conviction rates are less than 10 percent of cases opened due
to what we consider unprofessional investigations. Often the police claim to
have lost the paperwork or say they are unable to find the perpetrators," Yavne
told IPS.

There has also been a sharp rise in the number of Palestinian
children in Israeli detention this year, with 391, including six girls,
incarcerated at the end of April, a 20 percent increase between December 2008
and February 2009.

Human rights organizations monitoring the situation of
child prisoners in Israeli prisons are concerned about the lack of respect for
the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a
signatory.

"These concerns are related to consistent allegations of
physical and psychological abuse during interrogations; denial of prompt access
to lawyers and family visits; substandard conditions of detention, including
lack of access to proper health or educational services," OCHA
says.

Further fueling Palestinian anger and despair is the tripling of
Palestinian homes destroyed by the Israeli authorities in April compared to
March. According to OCHA, 286 Palestinians, including many children, have been
displaced this year.

Israel says the homes were demolished because they
lack building permits. However, it is almost impossible for Palestinians
residing in East Jerusalem to obtain the requisite permits. Jewish residents of
West Jerusalem obtain permits with ease.

Several foreign governments and
Israeli human rights organizations have accused the Israelis of following a
deliberate policy of Judaizing East Jerusalem, in an effort to prevent its
future division. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as their future
capital.

Palestinians are also largely forbidden from building on large
swathes of the West Bank that fall under complete Israeli control, even though
according to international law and UN Security Council resolutions the territory
belongs to the Palestinians.

West Bank Palestinians are also getting
increasingly thirsty. The World Bank has just released a report, "Assessment of
Restrictions on Palestinian Water Sector Development." The report says water
allocations, established during the 1995 Oslo interim agreement, fall short of
today's needs.

Two-and-a-half million Palestinians survive on less than
20 percent of the West Bank's aquifers, while Israel expropriates the
rest.

"Israeli settlers consume up to 200 liters of water daily per
individual while Palestinians in the West Bank survive on 30-60 liters per
individual daily," Palestinian Environmental Authority (PEA) deputy-director
Jamil Mtoor told IPS.

Meanwhile, a number of international projects to
fund West Bank humanitarian aid relief are at risk due to economic
shortfalls.

The UN's Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) reported that
although $254 million had been pledged towards the rehabilitation of Gaza, the
level of funding for the West Bank continues to be extremely low, with only
about 30 percent of needs covered.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP)
has reported a severe shortage for its projects in the West Bank, while the UN
agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) has reported financial problems relating
to a number of emergency aid programs.

"UNRWA relies on voluntary funding
for our projects, with the two biggest donors being the US and the EU," UNRWA
spokesman Chris Gunness told IPS.

"The international monetary crisis has
not helped the situation, but we are still hopeful that we will be able to meet
the shortfall before June so that we don't have to close any of our emergency
programs," said Gunness.

Finnish-Israeli arms trade flouts EU regulations

2009-05-30T10:23:00.001+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10557.shtml

Finnish-Israeli arms trade flouts EU regulations

Bruno Jäntti, The Electronic Intifada, 27 May 2009

Finland's arms coopration with Israel violates EU
regulations. (Matthew Cassel)

Contrary to the heavily-hyped image
according to which the policy output of Finland is even-handed and neutral in
the Israel/Palestine conflict, Finland is actually a major arms trading partner
with Israel. Recent reports by the Committee of 100 in Finland, Amnesty
International, as well as an article in Finland's biggest newspaper,
Helsingin Sanomat, all revealed Finland's deeply troubling attitude
towards the actions of the State of Israel.

Since 2002 the value of trade
between Finland and Israel in anti-tank guided missiles has been more than 4
million euros. After numerous queries Finland's Ministry of Defense admitted
that Finnish corporation Insta DefSec Inc. had subcontracted this material to
Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, a major Israeli weapons manufacturer with ties
to Israel's nuclear programs. Insta has exported more than 200 thermographic
cameras and 3,000 parts for the missile's seeker head, both crucial components
of the Spike anti-tank missile (Jarmo Pykälä, "Panssarintorjuntaohjusten
osia ydinaseyhtiölle," Kansan uutiset, 9 April 2009).

These
dealings made Finland the second largest provider of missile technology to
Israel, playing second fiddle only to the United States. Finland is also
Israel's ninth most important supplier of arms and ammunitions, according to
Amnesty International. Besides these exports, Finland purchased medium-range
missiles from Rafael in 2000 and 2001 for a value of more than 37 million euros.
Amnesty International also reports that Patria, a Finnish military contractor,
has done service work and tests with Elbit Systems, one of Israel's biggest
military manufacturers. Finnish Defence Forces has also purchased electronics
from Israel for at least $21 million since the year 2000 ("Missä
soditaan suomalaisilla aseilla," Suomen Sadankomitea ry, 2009
[PDF]). While there is no direct evidence that Finnish military exports are used
by the Israeli army itself, Finland is a major trading partner with companies
such as Rafael Advanced Defence Systems and Elbit Systems. These military
technology giants, for their part, are at the very core of the illegalities
carried out by the Israeli political-military establishment.

The history
of weapons trade between Finland and Israel goes back more than half a century.
After the Continuation War -- the second of the two wars between the Soviet
Union and Finland during World War II -- Tampella, a Finnish heavy industry and
weapons company, restored and stockpiled machinery for manufacturing ammunition.
In 1950, this merchandise was shipped to Israel. The same year Tampella sold the
license of its mortar model to Israeli arms maker Soltam Systems (Teemu Sainio,
Tampellan konepajan aseteollisuus 1932 - 1944 Masters Graduate Thesis in
History, University of Tampere, 2003).

In order to understand the
political and legal implications of the Finnish-Israeli cooperation in military
technology, and accordingly in order to determine whether Israel is or is not a
legally eligible candidate for arms trade, we need to establish both the nature
of Israel's policies and the legal framework for the arms trade.

During
its attack last winter on the occupied Gaza Strip, which had already plunged
into a humanitarian catastrophe due to Israel's illegal blockade, the Israeli
army inflicted widespread death, injury and devastation. The respected and
independent Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported that 926 Palestinian
civilians died in Israel's attack and 5,303 were injured. Amongst them, 427
children under the age of 16 were killed and 1,890 children were injured.
Furthermore, 110 women, 123 old people, 14 doctors and 4 journalists were
killed. According to the UN, Israel destroyed 160 schools, 1,500 factories and
workshops and 80 percent of the agricultural crops (Margaret Coker "Gaza's Isolation
Slows Rebuilding Efforts," The Wall Street Journal, 5 February
2009). The BBC reported that 4,000 buildings were destroyed and 20,000 damaged.
At least 50,000 Palestinians were left homeless and 400,000 without running
water.

Knowing that the military technology used by the Israeli army is
among the most advanced in the world there can be no doubt that the obliteration
of the Gaza's civil society was fully intentional.

In the light of the
above-mentioned statistics alone, Finland's military trade and research
cooperation with Israel clearly violates European Union regulations on arms
trade, which Finland has pledged to observe.

What about the rocket
attacks from Gaza to southern Israel? According to Human Rights Watch, 2,700
rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel from August 2005 (after
Israel withdrew its settlers and moved its forces to the periphery of the Gaza
Strip) and May 2007, killing four Israeli civilians. During the same period,
Israel fired 14,617 shells into Gaza. This shelling killed at least 59 and
wounded 270 Palestinians. Unlike the rockets fired by Hamas, the Israeli
shelling was usually ignored by mainstream media. Although the rockets fired by
Hamas violate international law as they are unguided and therefore those who
launch them cannot differentiate between the Israeli military and Israeli
civilians, an objective account leaves no room for speculation: Israel has fired
far more numerous, destructive and precise shells into the occupied Gaza
Strip.

The highest political body of the European Union, the European
Council, has defined the legally binding rules of EU's arms exports. The second
of the eight regulations that comprise the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Export
states that EU member states will "not issue an export licence if there is a
clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression." It
also obliges EU states to "exercise special caution and vigilance in issuing
licences, on a case-by-case basis and taking account of the nature of the
equipment, to countries where serious violations of human rights have been
established by the competent bodies of the UN, the Council of Europe or by the
EU." If that is not clear enough, the regulation adds that "Member States will
take into account inter alia the record of the buyer country with
regard to its compliance with its international commitments, in particular on
the non-use of force, including under international humanitarian law applicable
to international and non-international conflicts."

It should also be
noted that Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the treaty which
gives Israel special access to EU markets, states that relations between Israel
and EU states, "as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be
based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their
internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this
Agreement." It would appear that selling weapons to a country that flagrantly
violates international law, as Israel does, would certainly violate both the
spirit and letter of this agreement.

Besides the highly destructive and
murderous Israeli military campaigns of short duration, there are numerous
high-quality studies available on Israel's other blatant human rights
violations, produced regularly by both local (such as the Israeli B'Tselem and
the Palestinian Al-Haq) and international (such as Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch) human rights organizations. These meticulous reports
encompass several decades. They all conclude, with remarkable correspondence in
the tiniest details, that Israel is guilty of serious human rights violations,
many amounting to war crimes.

Keeping this in mind, as well as Israel's
blockade and attack on Gaza, the illegal occupation and colonization with
settlements of Palestinian territory, the wall declared illegal by the
International Court of Justice, all of which violate international law and human
rights, the Finnish-Israeli arms cooperation is morally despicable and violates
EU regulations. It is thus illegal and should be discontinued
immediately.

Bruno Jäntti is a student of Political Science at
University of Tampere, Finland, and an Israel/Palestine activist. He can be
reached at brunojantti A T yahoo D O T com.

Grim housing, water situation in Gaza

2009-05-29T00:35:00.000+03:00

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84591

Grim housing, water situation in Gaza

Photo: Erica Silverman/IRIN

Ahmed Abdel Al, his wife and his three young children ran for their lives from their home east of Gaza City after a small rocket exploded in their living room on 13 January. Minutes later three missiles from an Israeli F-16 leveled his home

TEL AVIV, 28 May 2009 (IRIN) - Reports published recently by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Israeli NGO B'Tselem and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) paint a grim picture of life in Gaza more than four months after the 23-day Israeli offensive ended on 18 January.

At the end of April 2009, UNRWA and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) completed their assessments of damage caused during the offensive: Some 3,500 houses were totally destroyed or are beyond repair and many others have yet to be repaired. Israel has not allowed cement and building materials into Gaza since June 2007.

Some IDPs are living with family members, while others live in the makeshift tent camps.

Cameras distributed by B'Tselem to internally displaced persons in the makeshift camp of Al-'Azza, which was set up in the Gaza Strip immediately after the Israeli incursion, reveal harsh conditions. The testimonies have been compiled into a short film [see below]. Living on sand dunes in tents provided by international aid agencies, cooking on kerosene burners and using portable toilets, they report a feeling of despair and lack of safety.

To overcome the ban on imports of cement and water pipes, the ICRC is helping recycle local materials and using components manufactured in Gaza. The Rafah recycling plant needs to be repaired, it says.

To mitigate cement shortages, concrete segments of the old Rafah border wall, which lay abandoned after its partial demolition in January 2008, are being salvaged.

Water, sanitation

Pierre Wettach, ICRC's head of delegation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, quoted in an ICRC update on 12 May, said: "The water and sanitation infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is in dire need of a comprehensive upgrade. Even if the existing infrastructure were operating at full capacity, it would not meet the needs of the population. To provide Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants with adequate facilities it is absolutely essential that materials such as cement, steel and water pipes be allowed in."

According to a UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report on 15 May, raw sewage was back-flowing into homes in Khan Younis due to the deterioration of the sewage and waste-water treatment systems. During April, only three truckloads of plastic pipes for water and wastewater projects for the private sector were allowed into Gaza. There has been a ban on plastic pipe deliveries since late October 2008.

The Israeli Security Cabinet met on 24 May to discuss opening more crossings into Gaza and allowing a regular flow of medical supplies, food and a list of other commodities, including building materials, but no change in Israeli policy has been reported so far.

Source; IRIN

JORDAN: All-out UNRWA strike could hit vulnerable refugees

2009-05-27T22:59:00.001+03:00

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84573

JORDAN: All-out UNRWA strike could hit vulnerable refugees

Photo: Dana Hazeen/IRIN

A young Palestinian receives treatment in a UNRWA clinic in Jebel Al Hussein refugee camp in Amman (file photo)

AMMAN, 27 May 2009 (IRIN) - A pay dispute between employees and the management of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in Jordan could affect vulnerable refugees, especially in the many UNWRA-run schools and clinics.

Thousands of UNRWA employees went on strike 12-14 May in UNRWA facilities, members of the teachers committee who declined to be identified, said, and an all-out strike - potentially paralysing hundreds of clinics and schools across Jordan - is being threatened.

The employees are demanding a 7 percent pay rise, in line with a promised government pay rise of the same magnitude for civil servants.

During the three-day strike, about 124,000 students in different parts of the kingdom, including all 10 of the UNRWA-run refugee camps, were unable to attend classes, according to UNRWA.

The strike involved about 10,000 workers, including teachers, doctors, sanitation workers and administration officials, teachers committee members say. However, some media reports put the figure at 7,000.

Previous UNRWA reports

UNRWA moves to combat violence in its schools

Palestinian schoolchildren to get government food aid

Palestinian refugees to benefit from nutrition programme

Eligible Palestinian refugees sign up for new housing initiative

Health centres and refuse collection activities also came to a halt, and the alleyways of the al-Hussein-camp in Amman filled up with rubbish during the three-day strike.

Disgruntled

One of the disgruntled teachers, Salem (not his real name), said he was also a refugee and deserved a "decent salary".

"People used to envy us… due to the good salaries, but as the years passed by and inflation ate into our pay, people began to pity us," he told IRIN.

Salem shares his two-room concrete home near the centre of the al-Hussein-camp with his wife and eight children. He said he had no option but to strike: "The salary is barely enough for 10 days. What to do for the rest of the month?"

UNRWA provides services to Palestinian refugees who arrived in Jordan after the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel. Together with their offspring, they now number nearly 1.8 million.

Photo: Dana Hazeen/IRIN

The UNRWA headquarters in Amman (file photo)

UNWRA "needs time"

Meanwhile, UNRWA officials in Amman said the strike, which came less than a month after a one-day work stoppage for the same reason, was "futile".

UNRWA spokesman in Amman Matter Saqer said he was "concerned about the fate of tens of thousands of students as well as beneficiaries of health care in the camps and outside."

"We made all possible efforts up to the last minute to avert the strike. We did not want this to happen, but schools were closed and health care clinics stopped working," said Saqer, stressing that the UN agency never ignored its workers' demands, but "needs time".

According to officials from the Department of Palestinian Affairs (DPA), which manages the affairs of the 1.8 million Palestinian refugees, UNRWA needs urgent financial assistance to implement its programmes and increase its budget.

UNRWA's camps contain 338,000 registered refugees, while the total number of registered refugees in Jordan is 1,951,603.

MARATHON MAN BARRED FROM GAZA

2009-05-27T12:08:00.001+03:00

Marathon man barred from Gaza

Marathon runners appear to have become the latest item on the list of things banned from the Gaza Strip. Max Calderan, an Italian national and winner of four international marathons, had hoped to run through Gaza as part of his 540 kilometer "Run For Love" from Ramallah, to Jerusalem, through Gaza, into Egypt and then to the pinnacle of Mount Sinai. Having been told by the Israeli authorities initially that he could go into Gaza as part of this five day mega-marathon and having been given assurances from the Israeli Ministry of Sport, he was still barred.

"I am very disappointed because there is no politics, no religion, nothing controversial in my Run For Love", Max told a news conference in Jerusalem. "I run simply in the name of peace". When asked whether he was a security risk because of potential problems in Gaza, Max said his "security was guaranteed by the United Nations and that this was just an excuse by the Israeli authorities to keep him out of Gaza".

The event was co-sponsored in Gaza by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. UNRWA Spokesperson, Christopher Gunness said: "It seems that marathon runners have now joined that list of banned items. Light bulbs, detergent, building materials and now marathon men. To make matters worse", said Gunness, "we had young athletes, disabled children waiting to run with Max inside Gaza. They have been deprived of some sportive fun. Parents everywhere will surely find this a bewildering decision."

Max Calderan will now travel from Jerusalem to Egypt by car where he will resume his run, a further 250 kilometers to the top of Mount Sinai.

Source: UNRWA

Letters from Gaza (23)

2009-05-27T12:04:00.000+03:00

Letters from Gaza

...Nakba ever after

Last week was the 61st anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba. Many writers have written about the Nakba, and about losing the homeland, losing national dignity, and security. But none of them have written about the frequent disappointments that the Palestinian refugees have had and held onto since then, the disappointments that, along with dreams and hopes, are passed on from one generation to another.

With each memory of the Nakba we as Palestinian refugees all over the world bring back the old memories that we kept and inherited from our parents and grandparents, narrate the old stories of fleeing the land, leaving everything behind, fleeing for our lives and expecting to return a few days later. These stories provide an intimate connection with the past and with the homeland, but as the years pass and the old stories are retold alongside new stories of suffering and disappointment our sense of time and place becomes blurred.

With every year we hope that there will be a chance for peace, for justice or even for a small light to give hope if not for us, for our children, to live a decent life away from wars and violence, away from pain and bitterness. However, our dreams and humble expectations are met with disappointment, leaving us to mourn not only the recurring feelings of grief but also to mourn the loss of humanity inside each of us.

With each memory we realize that as Palestinian refugees, we are sentenced to live the Nakba over and over again, accompanied each year with different kinds of pain and greater disappointments. The stories we narrate, the stories of our grandparents, the keys of the houses we were forced to abandon, the smell of the orange trees, the smell of za'ater, are all ghosts from the past, and are fading slowly with the death of elderly Palestinians who were forced out of their homeland.

Unlike my generation, and the generation before, who were captured by the beauty and magic of the stories narrated by our grandparents and our parents about the homeland, the coming generation will lose this connection with their roots and their past. They will be overwhelmed with frequent disappointments and the old stories, the old keys, cloth, and even land papers will mean nothing to them, except as rituals.

When we hear these stories from those who really experienced the fleeing journey, we feel the pain; we even taste the bitterness for not seeing the land again, all the feelings attached to this story are passed to us, we become affected and we hold onto this connection with the past and in some ways it gives us hope. But as the years pass, these feeling of being connected to the homeland are replaced with frustration and disappointments.

The Palestinian refugees, particularly those who are living in Gaza, are crushed under great frustration and great disappointments, especially after January's military operation. The size of destruction, the number of deaths, and the amount of stress that everyone in Gaza had to experience during the war left us so fragile, so easily overwhelmed, to the extent that there is no room left for peace in the mind or soul. We are so tormented with the horrors of the war, and with the possibility of experiencing another war.

The amount of frustration, and disappointment was clear when both of my sons announced that they will not get married in the future, because they don't want to have children, and they both don't want to experience pain of losing their children, or even seeing them suffer unable to help them…. They were right but I was shocked.

UN says displaced people still streaming out of Pakistan conflict

2009-05-27T11:40:00.001+03:00

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30912&Cr=pakistan&Cr1=

Displaced people still streaming out of Pakistan conflict zone – UN

Displaced family from Swat packs up non-food items received from distribution point in Yar Hussain camp in Swabi, Pakistan

26 May 2009 – Clashes between Government forces and militants in north-west Pakistan are continuing to uproot people from their homes, with nearly 130,000 people being registered daily as displaced, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The agency said today that provincial government authorities have noted that the number of uprooted from the Swat, Lower Dir and Buner districts registered in a fast-track process since 2 May has now reached almost 2.4 million people. However, UNHCR cautioned that these figures are being verified and could change.

Currently, the federal Government and provincial authorities are discussing how to provide further aid to internally displaced persons (IDPs) beyond the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters.

"Many people are still reportedly stranded in the conflict zones," he said, adding that the curfew in effect in the area is lifted for only several hours, with roads becoming quickly congested with people rushing to escape the area.

The fare for a bus ride from Mingora, in Swat District, to Mardan town to the south has tripled from 2,000 rupees, or $24, to 6,000 rupees, or $74, according to those who have fled.

Mr. Redmond said that his agency is working with the Government to build separate shaded communal areas for men and women in several camps to provide access to cool areas. In sectors where there is electricity, these spaces have electric water coolers and fans, among other items.

Along with its partner agencies, UNHCR has begun distributing bricks to families to build individual kitchen stoves – to allow them to cook their own meals with rations from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) – in some camps. Until now, they had been eating cooked meals distributed by the Government.

"At the same time, UNHCR continues to witness many acts of generosity from the Pakistani community towards their fellow citizens," Mr. Redmond said, noting that one private donor contributed food packages for over 2,000 people in Jalozai camp, which now houses a further 50,000 newly displaced people since 2 May.

Meanwhile, others are donating food, clothes and mattresses to thousands of families taking refuge in schools, he said. One woman who now lives in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, but is originally from Mardan, travels every weekend to her hometown to bring cash, clothes and tea she collects from her friends to give to the displaced people, Mr. Redmond reported.

UNHCR is also boosting assistance to people living in schools in Mardan and Swabi districts, and is also planning to help the many uprooted people sheltering with relatives, friends or in rental accommodations.

Over the weekend, 36 tons of relief supplies – tents, plastic rolls, kitchen sets, jerry cans, soap, generators, water tanks and purification equipment – were airlifted to Islamabad by the Italian Government and donated to UNHCR.

Additionally, a UNHCR relief bank in Nowshera has been receiving in-kind donations, such as sleeping mats and water coolers, from private donors.

Mr. Redmond said that the agency is continuing to purchase more supplies within Pakistan and to ship items from its stockpiles around the world, but underscored that it "urgently needs funds to accelerate the purchase of relief supplies for its operation."

Last Friday, the UN and its partners launched a $543 million appeal to help the nearly 2 million people who have escaped the violence in NWFP.

In a statement, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his concern that "Pakistan is currently witnessing rapid displacement on a massive scale."

Islamic Endowments (Awkaf) in Jerusal...

2009-05-26T12:14:00.001+03:00

Islamic Endowments (Awkaf) in Jerusalem condemns Jewish settlers attack on Muslim cemetery

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Awkaf committee that caters for Muslim graveyards in the occupied city of Jerusalem has strongly condemned Sunday the cruel attack on the Rahma cemetery at the hands of fanatic Jewish settlers.

According to the committee, the settlers, who are believed to be protected by the IOF troops, assaulted and destroyed many tombs in the graveyard in a clear act of desecration of the cemetery.

Chairman of the committee Mustafa Abu Zahra described the attack as "vicious and condemned desecration of a Muslim site in Jerusalem", adding that families of those buried there were extremely angry at the incident.

Eyewitnesses in the city asserted that while they were on their way to the Aqsa Mosque to perform dawn prayer on Friday, they saw a group of Israeli settlers defacing and destroying the graves before they (the settlers) fled from the place after they realized they were exposed.

According to Abu Zahra, the attack was part of a broader Israeli plan to Judaize Jerusalem, and to distort all Muslim milestones in it with the aim alter its Muslim identity.

The Israeli occupation authority strives hard to ensure Jewish majority in the city, and to displace Palestinian Jerusalemites out of it.

The incident wasn't isolated, underlined Abu Zahra, adding that many Jewish settlers' attacks had taken place in the past against the Mamanullah cemetery and other Muslim and Christian holy shrines in the occupied city.

However, Abu Zahra confirmed that Muslim cemeteries will remain for Muslims, and that the Palestinian Jerusalemites would defend those Muslim sites with all possible means, and to the last drop of their blood.

Source: PIC

Over 20 percent of Iraqis live below ...

2009-05-26T11:31:00.001+03:00

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84526

Over 20 percent of Iraqis live below the poverty line

Photo: IRIN

Poverty has forced these children to rummage through garbage every day to help make a living for their families (file photo)

BAGHDAD, 24 May 2009 (IRIN) - Some 20-25 percent of Iraq's estimated 27 million population lives below the country's poverty line, a government survey released on 21 May has found. Though wide disparities were found between northern and southern provinces, the government said the results were better than expected.

"Poverty is concentrated in the Iraqi rural areas more than in the urban areas in all provinces," said the survey, which was conducted by the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation.

It found that the highest poverty rate was in the southern province of Muthana with 49 percent, followed by the central provinces of Babil with 41 percent and Salaheddin with 40 percent.

The lowest poverty rates were in the three northern provinces that make up Iraq's self-ruled Kurdistan Region: Dahouk, with 10 percent living below the poverty line, and Erbil and Sulaimaniyah with 3 percent each.

The survey defines poverty as living on 76,896 Iraqi dinars (about $66) a month, or $2.2 a day.

Better than expected

Abdul-Zahra al-Hindawi, spokesman for the planning ministry's Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology, blamed unemployment, dilapidated infrastructure and corruption as the causes for the high poverty rates - but thought the rates would have been even higher.

"We expected to find higher rates of poverty for many reasons but we found that the state-run food programme has a big role in assisting poor people," al-Hindawi told IRIN.

He added that a supreme governmental committee, made up of lawmakers and representatives of different ministries, is drawing up a strategy to alleviate poverty in the country. This 2010-2014 anti-poverty strategy will be released in the second half of 2009, he said.

"We are certain that poverty rates will be reduced in the coming few years if a big role is given to Iraq's private sector in economic development," al-Hindawi said.

Iraq's food rationing system, known as the Public Distribution System, was set up in 1995 as part of the UN's oil-for-food programme following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait 17 years ago. However, it has been crumbling since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 due to insecurity, poor management and corruption.

Source: IRIN

Gaza liquidity crisis having tangible...

2009-05-26T11:20:00.001+03:00

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84537

Gaza liquidity crisis having tangible humanitarian impact

Photo: Free Gaza

Damage inflicted by Israeli airstrikes in January 2009 on Rafah town homes in the Gaza Strip

GAZA CITY, 25 May 2009 (IRIN) - A banking and liquidity crisis is affecting the lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: Civil servants are struggling to get their salaries, and humanitarian aid is being delayed. Thousands of welfare benefit recipients are not getting their dues.

This week Israel allowed the transfer of 50 million new Israeli shekels (NIS - equivalent to US$12.7 million) to Gaza towards the payment of 65,000 employees of the Ramallah (West Bank)-based Palestinian Authority (PA) who live in Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007, the flow of cash into Gaza has been restricted to infrequent shipments of NIS 50-100 million. The restrictions have left banks in Gaza without sufficient cash to allow PA staff to withdraw their salaries. The lack of cash has impeded basic financial transactions and aid programmes, OCHA said. It has also led to cash hoarding.

Photo: PPO/Apollo Images/IRIN

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah (middle right) and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas (middle left). Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007, the flow of cash into Gaza has been restricted to infrequent shipments

"Our main operations in Gaza are cash-based. We assist the PA in Ramallah to pay salaries and pensions and the European Commission [EC] pays support to vulnerable families via their bank accounts, but there is not enough physical cash in the banks to allow the payments to be made," EC representative Christian Berger, based in Jerusalem, told IRIN.

The EC, the largest donor to the Palestinians, contributes US$33.4 million to the monthly PA salary bill, about half the requirements.

It also pays about US$250 to 48,000 social hardship cases every three months, about half of them in Gaza. Gaza families received their March payment in May but the EC is unsure if there will be enough cash for the June payment.

"The banking system in Gaza is on the verge of collapse because there is not enough physical cash," the EC's Berger said. "Our projects cannot receive the necessary cash."

Israel agreed to allow NIS 50 million to enter per month, but Gaza requires a minimum of NIS 100 million per month, said Berger.

"Cash enters [Gaza] usually once per month via the Erez crossing for PA employees from Ramallah," Israeli Defence Ministry spokesperson Shlomo Dror told IRIN. "We let money enter for international organisations and UN agencies if we know exactly where it is going; otherwise we can't be sure that cash entering Gaza does not go into the hands of Hamas."

When Hamas took over in Gaza, Israeli banks decided not to have a relationship with Gaza banks, because Hamas is considered a "terrorist organisation", said Dror.

"If Hamas acts like a terror organisation, we [Israel] will not assist or coordinate with their government," said Dror.

The Hamas government has assumed financial responsibility for the public school system, civil defence, public hospitals and 54 primary healthcare clinics in Gaza.

Photo: Naela Khalil/IRIN

Nurses on strike for more wages (file photo)

UNDP programme affected

"We are also facing this liquidity issue. The UN Development Programme [UNDP] is implementing a payment system for non-refugees whose homes were damaged or destroyed during Israel's last military operation," said UNDP programme officer Husam Toubil in Gaza.

"We have dispersed US$20 million in cash assistance and need to disperse US$6.3 million more, but there is a delay because the banks do not have enough cash," he said.

Ahmed Abbo, a 23-year-old nursing student, lost his home in East Jabalyia during the Israeli offensive (27 December 2008 - 18 January 2009). He said those who used to live in his block of flats were waiting for $US5,000 from UNDP to rebuild each home but that the overall rebuilding cost for the eight flats was at least $250,000.

Some 13,300 households are registered with UNDP as recipients, and about 4,300 are still waiting to receive the funds to find alternative shelter or to repair their homes.

Ahmed Al-Sutan, 59, a former labourer in Israel, and his wife Sabah, are waiting for $5,000 from UNDP to rent an apartment for their family of 12 after their home in Jabalyia was destroyed during the offensive. "My family now lives in a one-bedroom, one-bath house in Jabalyia," said Ahmed Al-Sultan. "One month ago I was supposed to receive the funds, but they have been delayed."

UNRWA scheme affected

The same scheme is being implemented for refuges in Gaza by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

"UNRWA is in the process of distributing cash for refuges with damaged and destroyed homes," said UNRWA spokesperson in Gaza Adnan Abu-Hasna. "We have dispersed $5million, and we want to disperse $20 million more but we are struggling due to the lack of cash."

UNRWA is also having difficulty getting cash into Gaza to allow it to make payments to social hardship cases, mainly for food.

The last payment for the 96,000 refugees registered as social hardship cases was delayed nearly four months, while 25 percent of the 96,000 have yet to be paid anything, Abu-Hasna said.

Some 1,075,000 Palestinians are registered refugees in Gaza, according to UNRWA. About 1.5 million Palestinians live in the 356sqkm territory.

Photo: Erica Silverman/IRIN

The area inside Rafah crossing on the Palestinian side. The open door leads to scores of tunnels, located on the other side of the wall, used to smuggle basic food items, supplies and cash from Egypt into Gaza

Black market

The EC and UN agencies in Gaza are concerned that the lack of cash is eroding the transparency of the Palestinian banking system and creating an unhealthy black market.

Tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border are used to import cash, according to OCHA in Gaza.

Almost all imports to Gaza are paid for in cash due to the lack of links between banks in Gaza and banks in Israel, according to the governor of the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA) in Ramallah, Jihad Al-Wazir. This was leading to price fixing and unregulated transactions, he said.

New bank opens

The National Islamic Bank (NIB) opened three weeks ago in Gaza City.

"We only do local business. We did not get a license from the PMA due to the political divide," said manager Hazem Housni. "The Gaza government has more than 25,000 employees and other banks are denying them services."

NIB hopes to reduce the effects of the cash crisis by collecting money from Gaza customers and re-investing the funds in Gaza to re-circulate the cash.

Source: IRIN

Uphill struggle boosting disaster ris...

2009-05-26T11:07:00.000+03:00

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84478

Uphill struggle boosting disaster risk reduction efforts in the Middle East

Photo: Mohammed Al-Qadhi/IRIN

Deadly landslide in Yemen (file photo)

MANAMA, 21 May 2009 (IRIN) - The Middle East has its fair share of natural disasters, but the notion of disaster risk reduction is new, and it is often difficult to persuade governments that funding it is worthwhile, experts say.

"The region is affected by disasters such as drought, cyclones, landslides and earthquakes. There are earthquake prone areas in North Africa and the Jordanian Valley. Floods are also a common hazard and have been occurring more frequently in recent years," said Luna Abu-Swaireh, regional programme officer at the Cairo-based UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).

Rapid economic and urban development has also concentrated people in hazard-prone cities, where little effort has gone into boosting risk reducing capacities, she said.

The impact of climate change is also felt. "Syria, for example, was severely affected by the worst drought ever [in 2008 and 2009]. In April, UAE [United Arab Emirates] had heavy rains and even very low temperatures on high ground," Abu-Swaireh said.

According to the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT), over the last 28 years about 37 million people in the Arab region have been affected by droughts, earthquakes, floods and storms, whilst Arab economies lost about US$19 billion during the same period.

The 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Progress launched on 17 May in Bahrain said: "[Global] progress towards achieving the priorities for action contained in the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) remains mixed."

Slow progress

More on Middle East Disasters

Cyclones, storms and hurricanes

EGYPT: Farmers fight palm tree pests in Wadi al-Jadid

SYRIA: Livelihoods at risk as UN appeals for US$20 million

JORDAN: Drought may claim thousands of olive trees

Some progress has been made by Arab countries on disaster risk reduction, but "not at the speed required to fulfil the commitment of the Hyogo Framework for Action [HFA] by 2015," Luna Abu-Swaireh said.

Only Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Yemen have been monitoring closely and reporting on the implementation of HFA. Bahrain and Egypt have set up national coordination mechanisms, whilst Jordan, Syria and Yemen have been working with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and others on hazard mapping and risk assessments, according to UNISDR.

"Action is very small compared to what Arab governments are saying," said Emad Adly, general coordinator at the Arab Network for Environment and Development (RAED), a community-based regional NGO which promotes disaster risk reduction practices at community level.

"Arab countries say a lot about understanding the importance of risk reduction and the link between disasters and sustainable development in regional and international conferences, but this does not translate into plans on the ground," he told IRIN.

"[Arab] NGOs have programmes such as reducing poverty or improving the livelihoods of rural areas, but are they aware that these are in the framework of a risk reduction strategy?" Adly asked.

Photo: Adil Hameed/IRIN

Flooding in Iraq (file photo)

Challenges

Funding remains the main challenge facing humanitarian workers wanting to implement disaster risk reduction projects in the region.

"People working in this field know that if a disaster happens they can find money for it. When the tsunami hit [parts of Asia] billions of dollars were donated. But to find funding for a development programme in Salt [a town in west-central Jordan], for example, is very difficult," International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' disaster management coordinator in the Middle East and North Africa, Abdel Qader Abu Awad, told IRIN.

"When we went to the old town in Salt, we found it has extremely narrow roads. If there were an earthquake in the area, no rescue vehicle would be able to enter the town," he said.

Funding is also a problem at the local and national level. "There is huge resistance from governments and institutions to allocating money for safety," said Mohamad al-Khalil from the Comprehensive Disaster Risk Reduction Programme at UNDP Syria.

"We proposed to the Ministry of Education [in Syria] a number of important measures related to the safety of school premises and the raising of awareness among schoolchildren. Despite the pressure we exerted, the sums allocated were insufficient," he said.

Palestinian gov’t calls on Egypt to allow European hope convoy in

2009-05-25T10:57:00.001+03:00

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7EMhMoYMajQj6g%2beT%2f%2f743IygPidJfu8xhLI33h0wZIUYVdlYUwb2pDQdoXy0ib1DY2Rgt0B26S%2fdfznPGtGD08S%2fL1lnW7JDS%2frKMBr8jXE%3d

Palestinian gov't calls on Egypt to allow European hope convoy in Gaza

RAFAH, (PIC)-- The Palestinian government headed by premier Ismail Haneyya on Sunday called on Egypt to allow the European hope convoy into the besieged Gaza Strip, expressing shock at the Egyptian authorities' inflexibility towards the convoy in spite of its humanitarian mission.

Minister of labor and social affairs Ahmed Kurd stated that the European convoy is carrying humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza, pointing that the aid includes medical appliances for the disabled and those with special needs.

The minister recalled that all international humanitarian laws confirm that the Israeli siege on Gaza is unfair and overstepped all human values and morals.

In the same context, the government committee to break the siege strongly denounced the Egyptian authorities for placing obstacles in the way of the convoy.

In a statement received by the PIC, the committee said that the Egyptian authorities decided to allow the passage of only 16 participants in the convoy out of 100 others, but all members of the convoy rejected this decision and insisted on moving collectively into Gaza.

Jerusalem court orders Palestinian to demolish room of his home

2009-05-25T10:44:00.001+03:00

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=38062

Jerusalem court orders Palestinian to demolish room of his home

Jerusalem – Ma'an – A local Israeli court has ordered a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem's Old City to demolish a room of his house and pay a 6000 shekel (1500 US dollar) fine for building without a permit.

Riyad Agha said he was given 45 days to complete the demolition. He is facing a three month jail term if he does not comply with the decision.

Agha also said that he already paid an 8000 shekel (2000 dollar) fine in 2004 for building the one-room addition to his house without a permit from the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem Municipality, which notoriously refuses Palestinians permits. Hundreds of Palestinian-owned structures throughout the city are facing demolition for similar reasons.

Three months ago Agha was summoned to the municipal court, where he told the judge he applied for a license through an engineer, and submitted the application to the judge.

"There was a hearing on Thursday and the general prosecutor told me the municipal council of Jerusalem would never give a construction license in the Islamic Quarter of old Jerusalem, and that I was wasting my time," he said.

Man loses leg after shot by Israelis near Nablus checkpoint

2009-05-24T13:25:00.001+03:00

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&Do=&ID=38046

Man loses leg after shot by Israelis near Nablus checkpoint

Nablus – Ma'an – Israeli soldiers operating at the Shave Shomiron checkpoint to the west of Nablus shot 22-year-old Mufid Rafiq Shihab on Saturday evening, ultimately causing the amputation of his leg.

Palestinian medical sources in Nablus told Ma'an that soldiers opened fire at the Sabastiya man from western Nablus following clashes that broke out among youths and Israeli forces near the checkpoint.

Over the course of the incident, the young man received bullet wounds to the leg and was transferred by Palestinian Red Crescent staff to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, where his leg was ultimately removed. His condition was described as moderate to serious.

Israeli soldiers, police, attempt to shut down Palestine Festival

2009-05-24T11:00:00.003+03:00

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&Do=&ID=38040

Israeli soldiers, police, attempt to shut down Palestine Festival of Literature opening night

Jerusalem – Ma'an – Israeli police and armed border officials shut down the Palestinian National Theater in East Jerusalem on Saturday, in an effort to quash the Palestine Festival of Literature and prevent international writer and poets from addressing Palestinians.

The weeklong festival, sponsored in part by the British Council and UNESCO, was scheduled to begin at 6:30 with two panel discussions by authors from Canada, Britain, South Africa and Australia. The second annual festival will travel around Palestine and decided to begin and end events in Jerusalem in honor of Al-Quds Capital of Culture 2009.

In a last minute effort to let the show go on, organizers moved the event to the French Cultural Center also in East Jerusalem. Audience members crowded on the lawn outside the building as book readings and discussions on the theme of displacement in world literature were interrupted by power cuts and police sirens.

The spectators and litterateurs were greeted at the new event by five Israeli police vehicles stationed outside the garden wall.

According to some reports the initial decision to close down the performance at the National Theater was made at the request of the Israeli Interior Ministry. The move mirrors efforts to quash celebrations of Jerusalem culture for the 2009 Capital of Culture events.

The French consul, as well as Head of the Palestinian President's office Rafiq Al-Husseini, attended the event. Al-Husseini, as well as the six authors who spoke in an abbreviated format, condemned the Israeli actions.

Al-Husseini also praised France for stepping up to host the event, viewing it as empowering Palestinian demands for reopening closed offices in the capital.

100 disabled Hebron children threatened with homelessness

2009-05-24T10:30:00.000+03:00

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&Do=&ID=38042
100 disabled Hebron children threatened with homelessness

Hebron – Ma'an – Some 100 disabled Palestinians could become homeless when the facility housing them shuts down in June, its directors warned on Saturday.

The children have been living at the Al-Ihsan charitable society building in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, which is being forced to shut down due to lack of funds.

According to Omar Abu A'ram, the acting administrative director of the organization, a 2004 halt to internal and external financial support will lead the society to be unable to fulfill its mandate past May.

He said the Palestinian Social Affairs Ministry, which had been funding the society, stopped paying in 2004, and that each child's cost is 1,800-2,000 Israeli shekels each month. In addition to the ministry's 300-shekel payments for each child, other funds came from Hebron's residents and others across Palestine.

"External financial support stopped in 2004," he said, noting that "the society is about 500,000 shekels in debt to employees and the Hebron municipality, as well as other parties."

Abu A'ram also said that a ministerial cabinet had previously approved delivering all of the society's required funds from the Social Affairs Ministry, which amounted to some 836,200 shekels for the years since the middle of 2004 until March 2008 in one payment "and as soon as possible."

But after holding intensive contacts with the ministry's office in Hebron, "We found out that the minister, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, had signed a letter [requesting] the delivery of the payment and is waiting for it to be signed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

"Since then, we have been waiting for our payment," he said.

Abu A'aram concluded by noting that the society had sent a number of letters to the Social Affairs Ministry, as well as the Finance Ministry, and to President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad.

Gov't committee against siege implores WHO to save Gaza patients

2009-05-23T11:54:00.001+03:00

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7HEMWz8I2ZJK93cLCT7r%2fTrHNwP2odlJ%2bhnKTluWX4gfel5CtST4dxSBqVvPi%2f71k01nW9RuFYKs91McFWugFWGAM6UJZab7Km3yqO1r0nfQ%3d

Gov't committee against siege implores WHO to save Gaza patients from death

GAZA, (PIC)-- The government committee against siege has implored the World Health Organization to save the Gaza patients from certain death due to the continued Israeli siege on the Strip that has been ongoing for almost three years.

The committee in a press release on Wednesday noted that the number of patients who died as a result of the siege reached 333 with the latest being a one month old infant.

It asked WHO to end its "dreadful silence" and to pressure Israel into ending the siege and opening all crossings before the big number of patients who require treatment abroad.

The statement held WHO responsible for the soaring number of victims of the siege in its capacity as the authority responsible for the world health affairs within the United Nations.

It asked WHO to assume its pioneering role in dealing with international health issues and to ensure equality in receiving health treatment for the Gaza inhabitants similar to other patients in the world.

The committee pointed out that a big number of patients in the Strip were waiting for death in Gaza hospitals.

GAZA 100

2009-05-23T11:30:00.001+03:00

B i s m i l l a a h i r R a h m a a n i r R a h e e m

The recent Offensive...

Barbaric...

Aggression...

In Gaza!

Has left 1,342 people...

Dead!

Of which...

318 Are Children!

Those Injured...

Are Over 1400...

People!

ildren 860 children!

Families...

Are in Desperate...

Need of Food,Water and Healthcare!

As well as psychosocial support!

To Overcome...

The Traumatic...

Events...

That they...

Have Witnessed!

The Decision has been made!

At Mile End Stadium,London E14

IF in association with London Tigers and
MDUK, will be attempting to set the record!

For'The most people running 100 meters in a 12-hour relay'(Guinness book of records official title!)

On 23rd May 2009!
-Insha Allah-

The Aim is to Raise as much money
as possible for the Children Of Gaza!

Your Help & Assistance,,
is Insha Allah needed...

To achieve this truly amazing 'feet'!

Each participant will hopefully raise a minimum sponsorship of £100( Although it's sure that you will be able to raise alot more Insha Allah!)

All monies from this World Record Run,,
will be given as humanitarian Aid...

To Save Insha Allah the,,

Gaza Children Appeal!

Celebrities that have already agreed to participate in the Run include Tre Azam,and Ghazal Asif, Comedian Jeff Mirza, boxer Anthony Small and Baroness Pola Uddin.

ZIONISM!

IS TRULY...

RACISM!

STOP FUNDING!

ISRAELI OPPRESSION!!

AID PALESTINIAN CHILDHOOD!

THE CHILDREN OF GAZA!

HAVE NO VOICE!

SO BE...

THEIR VOICE!

CLICK!!

GAZA 100: World Record Run

FOR MORE INFORMATION!
CLICK!!

www.ifcharity. com/gaza100. html

Gaza Disowned: The Pope, Israel and '...

2009-05-23T10:27:00.001+03:00

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15125
Gaza Disowned: The Pope, Israel and 'Reconciliation'

By Ramzy Baroud

"Gaza is not on the Pope's itinerary, nor will it be. There will be no change in these plans. But I'll say it very clearly, the Pope is absolutely not going to Gaza."

Such were the astounding comments made by the Pope's spokesman in Israel, Wadie Abunasser, prior to Pope Benedict XVI visiting Palestine and Israel.

As if there was no massacre in Gaza, no families entirely slaughtered, no human rights violated to match the record of the most grisly of crimes in modern history. As if Gaza were a mere irritant in the annals of human suffering. More, as if there were no Catholic flock in Gaza. To clarify, there are actually nearly 2,000 Catholics in Gaza, apparently not important enough for the 'cut'.

Now, there are a lot of important religious sites to see around the Holy Land, lots of old churches, stones, ruins and the like…sites of much more significance, such as the Western Wall, the Holy Sepulcher and so on… far more important than visiting the site of a fresh massacre, where the stench of rotting bodies - laid to rest beneath a tomb consisting of the rubble of their own homes - has just faded. Such sites are apparently of little import to the Holy See. Rather, there are memorials to victims of greater standing, in shrines of superior grandeur, such as Yad Vashem…now, that's something to see.

On a trip that was apparently dedicated to promoting "reconciliation", it is baffling that Pope Benedict made little mention of the Israeli occupation of Palestine as a source of discord. Imagine that. But what he did say was, "Allow me to make this appeal to all the peoples of these lands: No more bloodshed! No more fighting! No more terrorism! No more war! Instead let us break the viscous circle of violence."

As if he was imploring two nations with common grievances, with mutually strong armies and nuclear arsenals. As if he were exhorting two peoples, both of which have access to clean water, both of which are properly nourished and educated. Or to put it another way, as if both peoples face the daily threat of their house being toppled while they are held up inside by an occupying army, as if both peoples face the daily threat of arrest, extra-judicial execution, the humiliation of curfews and checkpoints.

The Vatican needs some serious introspection. It ought to replace its highly politicized and, frankly, questionable apologies, with an earnest apology to oppressed people, who might have little political worth. The Pope should apologize to Palestinians and to Gazans in particular for failing to appreciate the seriousness of their plight, for cozying up to the very Israeli leaders who champion the suffering in Gaza, and fail to console the very victim of their onslaught.

More, as an institution that has garnered the reputation of advocating social justice throughout the world in recent years, the Catholic Church must abandon its current course, cowering before Israeli leaders, its Holy Father imparting such smug condescension on a nation that has endured a slow and gradual process of genocide for the past six decades.

Wishy-washy is the term that comes to mind. While he never wavered from condemning the "godless nation" that carried out the Holocaust, his references to Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine were so indistinct, that it was difficult to make any clear separation between the aggressor and the victim. As he witnessed with his own eyes the monstrosity of the Apartheid Wall, his comments were painfully elusive, "How earnestly we pray for an end to the hostilities that have caused this wall to be built." Oh really? Is this all the Holy Father has to say? Never mind occupation. Never mind hunger. Never mind randomly closing schools for months on end and denying an entire nation the right to education. But now we are talking about illegal weapons being used on civilian populations in Gaza. Now we are talking about a wall that has been declared "illegal" by the International Court of Justice. There is simply no time or place here for indecisiveness and moral flexibility.

And it is completely unacceptable for anyone to have the 'audacity' to urge Palestinian youth not to allow, as the Holy Father stated, "the loss of life and the destruction you have witnessed to arouse bitterness or resentment in your hearts". More, when making a stop at Aida Refugee Camp, he blamed the plight of the displaced population on "the turmoil that has afflicted this land for decades." It would have been far more favorable for him to stay home and not insult these sites of misery at all.

But in the end, the Pope finally was able to muster up some courage and took one truly audacious stand: When at the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority's chief Islamic judge, Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, declared that Israelis had killed innocent women and children in Gaza, the Pope stood up and in an act of defiance, walked out. Now that's courage.

The Palestinians, and millions of people around the world, expected more from a person who should be advocating the New Testament teaching: "let justice flow like a river and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

But the Pope has proven fallible, after all.

"The next generation must continue ou...

2009-05-22T22:09:00.001+03:00

"The next generation must continue our struggle"
Rami Almeghari writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 21 May 2009

Dr. Abdullah al-Hourani is a Palestinian politician and researcher based in the Gaza Strip. He is the director of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for National Studies in Gaza and chairman of the Palestinian Popular Committee for the Defense of the Right to Return. Al-Hourani was displaced by Zionist forces, along with more than 750,000 other Palestinians, from historical Palestine in 1948. On the occasion of the 61st aniversary of the disposession of Palestine, The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari interviewed Dr. al-Hourani at his Gaza City office.

Rami Almeghari: As a politician in charge of the Palestinian Center for National Studies and the Palestinian Popular Committee for the Defense of the Right to Return, how do you view the refugee question after 61 years?

Dr. Abdullah al-Hourani: First of all, I am a refugee and I was forced out of Masmaiya town which is between Gaza and Jerusalem. I was 12 and I still remember everything in my village -- the school, everything. When I pass by the village en route to Ramallah in the West Bank, I cry, remembering its soil, remembering my school.

My village, my land, my right of return are still there. My house is destroyed, but I am ready to rebuild it if I am allowed to return. I never forgot my village, and nor have my three sons and my grandson.

Throughout our struggle, we kept telling the younger generations to remember their hometowns. If you ask a six-year-old boy, he will answer quickly the name and place of his [family's] hometown, prior to 1948.

Along with the refugees in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and some Arab countries, there are about one million Palestinians living under the rule of the Israeli state. They are now in the Galilee, the Naqab [Negev] and all these inhabitants insist that those who were displaced should return to their homes.

For instance, Mohammad Baraka, who is a member of Israeli parliament, is originally from the Safuria village, but he is not allowed to live in Safuria. All these refugees including those inside and outside, are still suffering and their main aim is to return to Palestine.

In 1965, the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] stared its work in the refugee camps of Syria and Lebanon, with the main aim of regaining the right of return. So up to now we still insist on this right.

RA: There have been many peace initiatives to resolve the problem of Palestinian refugees, including the 2002 Arab peace initiative, which is based on peace with Israel in exchange for land. Israel has so far turned down all such initiatives. What do you say to this?

AH: Look, whatever Israel refuses or accepts, there will not be any peace in the region unless the right to return is achieved. Also, the Palestinians will not recognize or accept any Palestinian leadership that renounces the right to return.

The Arabs used to take a strong interest in the Palestine problem. In the '50s and '60s it was the main cause. Nowadays, however, we find a retreat in the positions of the Arab regimes towards the Palestinian issue.

This has affected the Palestinian leadership and struggle, and we know now that the majority of the Arab regimes are very close in their policies to the American administration. These regimes supported the American war on Iraq, so they are weak in terms of the Palestinian issue. Because of such subordination to American policy, these regimes have sought solutions that go with the American and Israeli interests.

The Arab peace initiative was formulated during the 2002 Arab Summit in Beirut. To the best of my knowledge, this initiative was written by the well-known American journalist Thomas Friedman.

At first the Arab initiative did not include any clause regarding the Palestinian refugee problem. But during the 2002 summit meeting, the Lebanese president insisted on including that part. There was a sentence that read "a solution can be worked out during talks, based on UN resolution 194."

Now there is a tendency by the Arab regimes to give more concessions. The Jordanian king, for example, returned recently from Washington with a new proposal that is based on removing that clause and on Arab countries taking steps towards normalization with Israel, such as recognizing Israel, before any peace talks.

I would like to assure you that no Palestinian leadership should accept that, otherwise it would be punished by the Palestinian people.

RA: Recently, the Israeli government has hinted at the possibility of creating economic prosperity in the occupied territories, sidelining the two-state solution proposed by Washington as well as the Arab peace initiative.

AH: In general, all Israeli governments are against the right of return, not only Netanyahu's government, but all his predecessors. But the current government comes with the support of racist Israeli parties. This will complicate more and more the possibility for return to Palestine. This government does not want to be in conflict with the current American administration, which supports peace.

The Israelis try to show they are interested in peace but they didn't yet recognize a two-state solution, and they insist that Palestinians should recognize Israel as a Jewish state. This means that Israel is obliterating the right of Palestinians to live on the soil of Palestine. Such a policy indicates that the conflict is a conflict about existence.

RA: US president Barack Obama recently indicated that Washington wants the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations to end in a final agreement.

AH: Bush also always reiterated his vision to realize a successful end to peace negotiations but he did not succeed. So this speech by Obama doesn't mean he will succeed. Maybe Obama himself has new views or new policies, maybe because of his origins, culture or charisma.

But the question is, will he be able to change American policies in just two or three years? These policies are based on American institutions for hundreds of years with definite guidelines. Also, there is a great influence by the Zionist movement on American policies, therefore it will not be easy for Obama to enforce a change.

I think Obama would rather pressure the Arab regimes, towards recognizing Israel before coming to a result regarding peace. And if Israel gains that, Israel will not consider real peace.

If the Arab regimes modify their peace initiative by dropping the demand for the right of return, Israel won't consider peace with Arabs and there won't be peace in the region or a Palestinian state. Israel is now considering getting rid of Gaza to Egypt and finding a solution for the West Bank in connection with Jordan.

RA: How do current Palestinian division between Hamas and Fatah overshadow the right of return in particular and the Palestinian question in general? I mean here the separate political platforms proclaimed by both parties.

AH: This division is further complicating the situation, including the right of return, establishing an independent Palestinian state and everything. Such a split is even giving a chance to Israel and the Arab regimes to neglect the Palestinian question.That's why the Palestinians must try to find a solution to unite themselves as a people, a government or a land. Only this would strengthen the Palestinian situation vis a vis Israel, the Arabs and the United States.

RA: As a veteran Palestinian politician and a refugee, what do you say to upcoming refugee generations?

AH: I would like to apologize to these generations because we failed to achieve any results after these prolonged years of the Nakba [catastrophe], but I would like to emphasize that we have succeeded to keep our people steadfast on their lands and persistent in seeking their inalienable rights. Also, we have succeeded in maintaining the Palestinian identity and convincing the international community that there is a Palestinian people and there are rights for this people, and we succeeded in gaining the recognition of more than 100 countries for our rights. Even though we have not achieved those rights we kept those rights alive. The next generations should continue the struggle and achieve what we have failed to realize.

Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli military are contaminating water sources - Environment Mi

2009-05-22T21:55:00.001+03:00

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84494
Israeli military are contaminating water sources - Environment Ministry

TEL AVIV, 22 May 2009 (IRIN) - Israeli forces bases in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) and Israel are contaminating land and water sources, says a letter addressed to Maj-Gen Gadi Shamni, commander-in-chief of the central command in Israel.

According to the 12 May letter signed by Issac Ben David, deputy director at the Ministry of the Environment, and seen by IRIN, five bases in the oPt are a major source of contamination due to poor handling of diesel fuel and oil.

The bases in question are Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem; Ramallah (West Bank); another is near Hebron (West Bank); and two are Israeli forces fuel stations near Macabim and Halamish.

Ben David's letter said: "In a recent inspection conducted by the ministry inspectors of Israeli forces bases in Judea and Samaria [the name commonly used by Israel to refer to the West Bank] we discovered a bleak picture of neglect and severe damage to the environment due to leakage of fuel and oil. This severely damages the soil and ground water."

"Our inspectors found that this is not due to lack of infrastructure but to criminal neglect on the part of the persons in charge," it went on.

Ben David ended the letter by saying this was only one example of environmental damage caused by Israeli forces bases, and told Maj-Gen Shamni that he would forward a full report with photographs of the affected areas. He urged Shamni to rectify the situation.

Ben David also reported grave contamination in two other bases in Israel - one in Ovda in the Negev desert, and the other in Julis near the city of Ashkelon.

The Israeli forces spokesperson's unit has responded: "The Israeli forces is aware of the importance of environmental issues and makes efforts to treat the existing hazards."

Representatives of the Ministry of the Environment appeared before the national committee on the water situation in Israel on 21 January and said the Israeli forces was a major contaminator of soil and ground water. They explained that the nature and wide scope of Israeli forces activities constituted a major contamination threat to every aspect of the environment. According to environmentalists, the Israeli forces sewage infrastructure, or lack of it, accounts for 50 percent of untreated sewage in the country.

Israel destroying Gaza's farmlands

2009-05-22T21:36:00.001+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10550.shtml
Israel destroying Gaza's farmlands
Eva Bartlett, The Electronic Intifada, 22 May 2009

A farmer holds crops destroyed by Israeli troops.

On the morning of 4 May 2009, Israeli troops set fire to Palestinian crops along Gaza's eastern border with Israel. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that 200,000 square meters of crops were destroyed, including wheat and barley ready for harvest, as well as vegetables, olive and pomegranate trees.

Local farmers report that the blaze carried over a four-kilometer stretch on the Palestinian side of the eastern border land. Ibrahim Hassan Safadi, 49, from one of the farming families whose crops were destroyed by the blaze, said that the fires were smoldering until early evening, despite efforts by the fire brigades to extinguish them.

Safadi says he was present when Israeli soldiers fired small bombs into his field, which soon after caught ablaze. He explained that "The Israeli soldiers fired from their jeeps, causing a fire to break out on the land. They burned the wheat, burned the pomegranate trees ... The fire spread across the valley. We called the fire brigades. They came to the area and put out the fire. But in some places the fire started again." According to Safadi, he lost 30,000 square meters to the blaze, including 300 pomegranate trees, 150 olive trees, and wheat.

In the border areas it has long since become nearly impossible to work on the land due to almost daily shooting from the Israeli soldiers. The crops that were burned on 4 May were dried and ready to harvest, meaning that they were extremely flammable.

"It took only three minutes for the fire to destroy 65,000 square meters," said Nahed Jaber Abu Said, whose farmland lies a few kilometers down the road from Safadi. He added that "It was nearly 9am. I was here when the Israeli jeeps came. An Israeli soldier at the fence shot an explosive into our field of wheat. It went up in flames immediately."

Safadi said that the arson attack was the third major time his farm has suffered from an Israeli attack. In previous attacks over the last decade, he explained, Israeli soldiers bulldozed his land, razing his lemon, olive and clementine trees as well as demolishing greenhouses.

"We've suffered great losses. The Israeli soldiers have destroyed so much of our land, trees and equipment. They've cost us a lot of money," he said, citing cumulative losses of $330,000 since 2000 when the heightened invasions began. In the last attack, Safadi said that $130,000 worth of crops, trees and irrigation piping was destroyed.

A wheat field destroyed by fire.

On top of the destruction, Safadi complains of not being able to replace destroyed items like the plastic hosing used to irrigate his fields. These, along with fertilizers and machinery replacement parts, are banned from entering Gaza due to the Israeli-led and internationally-backed whole-scale siege of the territory.

Abu Said reports losses of $2,000 on one patch of his land alone. "This isn't including the land closest to the border fence," he said. "I'm so sad now, what can I do?"

His experiences also extend beyond the 4 May attacks, and beyond the loss of land. In 2008, Israeli soldiers shot and killed 11 of his sheep and seriously injured a 15-year-old cousin, Jaber, by shooting him in the mouth.

Attacks by Israeli soldiers occur on a near-daily basis along Gaza's borders with Israel. Nearly a decade ago, Israel unilaterally imposed a "buffer" or "no-go" zone solely on the Gaza side of their shared borders. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee, the initial 100-meter "off-limits" area has now extended to one kilometer across much of Gaza's eastern border and two kilometers along the Strip's northern border. FAO further reports that roughly one-third of Gaza's agricultural land lies within the confines of the "buffer zone."

Since the 18 January ceasefire, three Palestinian civilians, including one child, have been killed in the "buffer zone" area from shooting and shelling by Israeli forces. Another 12 Palestinians have been injured, including three children and two women, due to Israeli fire along the border.

In addition to the physical threat and the destruction of agricultural land and equipment, Gaza's farming sector is further devastated by the destruction of what is believed to be hundreds of wells and sources of water and the contamination of farmland due to Israel's invasion of Gaza at the beginning of the year. As reported by the Guardian newspaper in February 2009, these attacks have left nearly 60 percent of Gaza's agricultural land useless.

The consequences of the active destruction of Gaza's farming sector are amplified within the context of Israel's siege and the stagnant state of rebuilding efforts since the ceasefire. With only a trickle of aid entering Gaza and poverty and malnutrition rates soaring, the ability to produce food is all the more vital to Palestinians in Gaza.

All images by Eva Bartlett.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who arrived in Gaza in November 2008 on the third Free Gaza Movement boat. She has been volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement and documenting Israel's ongoing attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. During Israel's recent assault on Gaza, she and other ISM volunteers accompanied ambulances and documented the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

No hope or change from Obama-Netanyah...

2009-05-22T21:21:00.001+03:00

No hope or change from Obama-Netanyahu meeting
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 21 May 2009

President Barack Obama talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in the Oval Office, 18 May 2009. (Pete Souza/White House Photo)

Seldom has an encounter between an American and Israeli leader been as hyped as this week's meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As expected, Obama committed himself to diplomacy with Iran and pledged an enormous effort to achieve a two-state solution. Netanyahu continued to incite confrontation with Iran and refused to commit himself to a Palestinian state.

On the surface it may seem there are real differences and that the forces arrayed on each side -- including the formidable Israel lobby -- are gearing up for an epic battle to determine the fate of US-Israeli relations.

But Obama offered little new, reaffirming well-worn US positions that view Palestinians, particularly Hamas, as the aggressors, and Israel as the innocent victim. While calling for Israel to halt settlement construction (as US presidents have done for decades), Obama offered no hint that he would back those words with action. Quite the contrary, the president said he would urge Arab leaders to normalize relations with Israel, rewarding it in advance of any renewed peace talks.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that Obama applies unprecedented pressure to force Israel to make a deal with the Palestinians. What would such a deal look like? The outlines were suggested in the recent report sent to Obama by a group of US elder statesmen headed by former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. The document, warning that there was only a "six to twelve month window" before all chances for peace evaporated, called on the US to forcefully advocate the creation of a Palestinian state. But this would be a demilitarized truncated state "based on" the 1967 borders. Israel would annex large West Bank settlements and there would be no right of return for Palestinian refugees. This "state" would be occupied indefinitely by a NATO-led "multinational force," which the Scowcroft group suggests could also include Israeli soldiers (see "A last chance for a two-state Israel-Palestine agreement, 2009).

Of course the Scowcroft proposal does not necessarily represent Obama administration thinking, but it expresses the pervasive peace process industry consensus that views such an outcome as "reasonable," "pragmatic" and all but inevitable, and it accords with Obama's own statements opposing the right of return and supporting Israel's demand to to be recognized as a "Jewish state."

In other words, what the vast majority of Palestinians would view as a horrifying plan to legitimize their dispossession, grant Israel a perpetual license to be racist, and turn the apartheid regime set up by the Oslo accords into a permanent prison, is now viewed as bold and far-reaching thinking that threatens to rupture American-Israeli bonds.

Netanyahu has little to lose by embarking on another "peace process" after making a show of resisting American pressure (or extracting more American concessions or money). He knows the chances of ever getting to the stated destination are nil. Obama will not apply significant pressure, and even if he did, it is unclear on whom he would apply it, since on the Palestinian side there are no leaders ready, willing and able to carry off a second Oslo-style fraud against their people.

Obama reportedly believes peace in Palestine is the key to transforming US relations with the "Muslim world." If he were serious about this, the US would have to break with all its past policies and support peace based on democratic and universal human rights principles and equality -- something incompatible with a commitment to Israel as a "Jewish state" practicing legalized discrimination. All the signs are however that the Obama administration will push to try to force Palestinians and Arabs to accept and normalize Israel as it is and that the US will continue to underwrite a morally and politically bankrupt Zionist settler-colonial project with a permanent American military, economic and diplomatic bailout.

The real problem for US-Israeli relations is not to be found in whether Netanyahu utters the magic words "two-state solution." Rather it is that after Gaza it is impossible to keep peddling the fiction that Israel is a brave, self-reliant liberal democracy deserving of unconditional support. No matter what this administration does, this will eventually result in pressure on Israel -- such as growing American public support for the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse

Valuable Vocations and Real Opportunities

2009-05-22T21:17:00.001+03:00

http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/stories/2009/English_club_may09.html

Valuable Vocations and Real Opportunities

The Damascus Training Centre (DTC) is an example of how the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and its donors succeed in providing valuable skills and opportunities for young Palestine refugees in Syria. Financial support from the European Commission (EC), Japan (JICA support through sending experts in various fields) and the Unites States has contributed massively to the running and continuation of the DTC, established in 1961. The regular operational costs are funded by the General Fund (GF).

In its early years, the Centre provided education for 200 students. It now offers both technical and vocational training courses to around 1000 Palestinian young people. There are two tracks for students to follow, referred to as 'blue collar' and 'white collar' courses. The first track enables students to choose one of thirteen vocational classes. Carpentry and furniture making, auto mechanics, and clothing technology are three of the wide-ranging course options available. The second track focuses on more technical pursuits. Among the nine options available to students of this track, electronics and computer technology, assistant engineering and computer information systems are three courses which offer technical knowledge and experience, improving the employment prospects of young Palestinians.

"Lately, the Centre has opened new courses and these courses suit the students' society that needs them," commented Osama Qasem, an English instructor in the second track. Together with Zakaria Hameed, Mr. Qasem founded the popular 'English Club', an extra-curricula class that takes place three times per week. The English Club is a melting pot of ideas and opinions and offers a forum for intercultural understanding and lively discussion in the English language. International volunteers and eager young Palestinians relish the opportunity to meet with each other in a learning environment. "Their openness and willingness to soak up the language really impressed me and gives me great hope for their futures," enthused one volunteer. The practical skills offered by the courses give the students opportunity to be successful in the workforce – an opportunity many would otherwise forego.

However, there is room for more improvement. The Centre needs to invest in a variety of new facilities to ensure that all students have the best chance to get the most from their opportunity there. More technical equipment, more opportunities to learn English and more training for teachers are crucial to continue and improve the success of the DTC. Together, these would improve the quality of education provided. Of course, "upgrading courses needs funding", acknowledges Fawzi al-Madfaa, the Principal of the centre. Funding such as that from the EC makes a tangible difference to the quality of service supplied.

The programmes provided by the Centre are being developed to give students specific skills and a genuine chance of future employment. "We work directly for the needs of the market. We make vocational training most cost and time effective," states al-Madfaa.

"My studies here have been great. The things I have learned should help me to have a good career," says Basel, a student at the centre. Like Basel, many students have benefited from the support they have found at the DTC since its establishment. The Centre is undoubtedly a crucial step in the lives of so many hopeful and ambitious young Palestinians – a step that would not have been possible without the additional financial support received from the EC, Japan and the US, in addition to funding provided through UNRWA's General Fund.

Source: UNRWA

Returning to the scene of a Gaza war ...

2009-05-21T11:12:00.000+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10538.shtml

Returning to the scene of a Gaza war crime
Erin Cunningham, The Electronic Intifada, 19 May 2009

Looking to rebuild in Khuzaa. (Erin Cunningham)

KHUZAA, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - Khuzaa is a small farming village perched on a gentle slope east of Khan Younis. Its fertile farmland once produced fruit and vegetables for export to Israel, whose own lush plains are just 500 meters from Khuzaa's center, and are visible through the town's narrow streets.

But the relative quiet of this rural border town, about 25 kilometers southeast of Gaza City, was shattered 10 January when Israeli forces launched an all-out, three-day assault that killed 16 civilians and destroyed many of Khuzaa's houses and its agricultural land.

Perilously close to the border with Israel, Khuzaa was the only place outside of the cities in Gaza's north -- which were effectively severed from central and southern Gaza by Israeli troops 5 January -- to suffer a full-blown ground invasion during Israel's three-week assault that ended 18 January.

Four months later, international human rights organizations are accusing Israel of committing war crimes in Khuzaa. Its residents continue to live with frequent military incursions and the daily threat of gunfire from Israeli watchtowers on the border.

"This assault was the worst thing to ever happen to us," says Khuzaa's mayor, Abu Ayman. "It is worse than when the village was divided in 1948."

Khuzaa saw little fighting in the first two weeks of the attacks. But on 10 January, a barrage of white phosphorus shells landed deep into residential areas, locals and a March report by Human Rights Watch say.

The next two days saw an onslaught of rockets and missiles fired from fighter jets, unmanned drones and Apache helicopters -- a precursor to a ground invasion of tanks, bulldozers and soldiers at midnight 13 January.

The men and boys of the village were blindfolded and detained in a massive hole dug by Israeli bulldozers, locals say. Terrified residents whose homes were bulldozed or occupied by the Israeli military fled to the safety of an open courtyard at Khuzaa's center.

"Many of the villagers who were taking refuge in the courtyard had moved there from the outer parts of Khuzaa because of the previous attacks," Amnesty International's head researcher for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Donatella Rovera, told IPS on telephone from London.

"These attacks happened where they thought they would be safe," Rovera said.

When the courtyard where villagers had taken refuge also came under attack -- an Israeli bulldozer began to demolish one of the courtyard walls, locals say -- Rawhiyya al-Najjar, a female resident of Khuzaa, decided they had no choice but to evacuate.

Carrying a white flag, Rawhiyya led a group of women and children out of the compound and into the village in the early hours of 13 January, according to residents and human rights groups.

She was shot in the head with a single bullet, independent testimonies confirm, and took 12 hours to die after a medic who tried to reach her also came under fire from Israeli forces.

Rovera says that Rawhiyya's murder, the reckless use of white phosphorus, and systematic destruction of homes by the Israeli military in Khuzaa constitute war crimes.

"The patterns of attacks as they happened in Khuzaa are consistent with the broader patterns throughout the war, which constitute grave breaches of international law, including war crimes," Rovera told IPS.

Rawhiyya's brother and Khuzaa's local head of relief services, Yusuf al-Najjar, says some 130 homes and thousands of trees were destroyed in the three-day assault.

"The bulldozing of homes and of farmland suggests very strongly a type of collective punishment against the residents of Khuzaa," Rovera says.

Because low-level clashes between Palestinian fighters and Israeli troops took place on the outskirts of Khuzaa, Rovera says, the destruction of homes by Israel's military appeared to be a "settling of scores."

"This is not the type of action that was taken in military necessity," Rovera says. "The clashes were over."

Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the punishment of people not directly involved in the original act of aggression.

Israeli military officials have so far failed to address the nature of operations undertaken in Khuzaa, Rovera says.

Since Israel's withdrawal from the village and its declaration of unilateral ceasefire 18 January, Khuzaa's residents have continued to live under the threat of constant gunfire and military incursions into their territory.

At least two people have died as a result of Israeli gunfire in Khuzaa since the formal end of operations, and seven have been injured.

On 13 May, local media reported Israeli troops and military vehicles approached the outskirts of the village, but that there were no casualties.

"After we have our dinner, everyone just goes to sleep," says Yusuf al-Najjar, as an unmanned Israeli drone whines above the village. "No one dares step outside after dark. Israeli soldiers still come into our village every night, and we can't do anything but be afraid."

Many of those displaced in the fighting refuse to return to their land near Israel's border, after Israel unilaterally expanded the extent of Khuzaa's farmland it is using as a "buffer-zone" between itself and the coastal territory.

Prior to the war, local farmers say the buffer-zone made up approximately 200 meters of land inside Khuzaa. Now, it appears the Israeli army has closed off as much as 700 meters of Khuzaa's land, forbidding farmers from tending to or harvesting their crops. Village residents only discover an area is "closed" after they are shot at.

Because Khuzaa, like the rest of Gaza, has received no funding to rebuild, Yusuf al-Najjar is using his own money to persuade residents to return to the village and reclaim their land.

Jaber Khalil Ghadeyah, a farmer who has peach and apple groves stretching all the way to the Israeli border, is the only one who has accepted the offer so far -- and Yusuf is paying for his new irrigation system.

Ghadeyah says he certain Khuzaa will see another war, but that he will never leave the land he has lived on for 30 years.

"If the Israelis come and destroy our village, we will rebuild," says Yusuf. "And if they come again, we will rebuild again."

Two years later, no reconstruction in Nahr al-Bared

2009-05-21T10:09:00.001+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10540.shtml

Two years later, no reconstruction in Nahr al-Bared
Ray Smith, Electronic Lebanon, 20 May 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn8o6Daybng&feature=player_embedded

About two years ago, a battle broke out between the Lebanese army and the militant group Fatah al-Islam in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in northern Lebanon. The summer-long battle concluded in September 2007 and the camp was totally destroyed -- the rubble indicating that the destruction was systematic, most likely committed by the Lebanese army. After several delays, the UN-mandated core of the camp, the so-called "old camp," has meanwhile been cleared of approximately 600,000 meters of rubble. Yet, reconstruction hasn't begun and residents are still unable to enter the old camp, the access of which is controlled by the Lebanese army, and displaced refugees are increasingly resentful.

On 9 March 2009, the authorities responsible for the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared participated in a ceremony that was intended to silence critics and give the appearance to the Lebanese and foreign media that reconstruction of the camp was guaranteed. Under the protection of the Lebanese army, Khalil Makkawi, chairman of the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC); Abbas Zaki, Representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon; the Lebanese Minister of Information, Tarek Mitri; and Karen AbuZayd, the General Commissioner of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), were chauffeured into the camp. During the ceremony, the foundation stone for the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared was laid, the lack of funding by the donor countries was criticized and empty phrases were offered. Delicate subjects such as the siege of the camp by the army weren't mentioned. The former residents of the camp were locked out behind barbed wire, while Lebanese soldiers kept them quiet. When the crowd tried to enter the closed area, they were beaten and pushed back by soldiers, who even used an armored personal carrier.

More than two months after the ceremony, Nahr al-Bared's old camp has yet to see any reconstruction work. According to the Preliminary Master Plan jointly prepared by the community-based Nahr al-Bared Reconstruction Commission for Civil Action and Studies (NBRC) and UNRWA, reconstruction was to start by May 2009. Since refugees are forbidden from entering the area, various stories about the fate of the foundation stone and the old camp have started to circulate. Some say the stone was stolen the day after the ceremony, others claim it was destroyed.

The slow speed of the clearing and the fact that the reconstruction hasn't yet begun reinforces the doubts of the displaced that they will ever return to their camp. Mahmoud, a young musician, explains that "Every few months they have another excuse for the delays. They used to point at a lack of construction machines, then said there were still too many unexploded ordnance devices among the rubble and finally it seems that the discovery of ancient pillars seems to prevent the work." Many refugees don't believe that the camp will ever be rebuilt. Salim, a young shoemaker, asks, "Why have they actually destroyed the camp? I don't think it was for rebuilding it!"

On 13 May, a car equipped with loudspeakers and driven by Fatah party supporters announced the visit of PLO representative Abbas Zaki. Khaled, a shopkeeper in the Corniche neighborhood in the new camp, which is not under the UN's mandate, silently stood by. Once the car had passed, he said, "Look, Abbas Zaki comes to lie to us. He wants to lessen the anger of the people in order to avoid heavy protests at the upcoming second anniversary of the war." Khaled added that he wouldn't attend Zaki's speech, as he was convinced that it would be filled with lies and empty promises and he wouldn't have the opportunity to speak.

The following day, Zaki's convoy reached the southern edge of Nahr al-Bared. The chosen location for his speech was a building outside the camp. Camp residents believe that this was a deliberate decision made after the March stone-laying ceremony when some attending the event hurled insults at Zaki and he left through the southern exit of the old camp, thus avoiding the angry crowd gathered at the northern entrance.

In his speech, Zaki spoke about Palestinian unity, the new Israeli government and many other issues, aimed at gaining the audience's support (the crowd were mostly Fatah supporters). However, he hardly spoke about Nahr al-Bared. After Zaki's speech, attendees were given the opportunity to ask questions and chaos ensued. Zaki's bodyguards quickly surrounded him and the audience was told to submit their questions on paper. Some residents, upset about their situation, believed this was an attempt to silence dissent.

The majority of questions dealt with the siege and reconstruction of the camp, unemployment and the situation in the temporary shelters, which residents call the "barracks." One resident managed to address Zaki verbally, stating that "We don't want any improvements of the barracks, we don't want any barracks at all!" After answering some questions, Zaki's convoy drove off -- without ever visiting the camp.

Members of the other two main PLO factions, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, were present during the speech and stayed silent to demonstrate unity within the PLO. In the streets however nobody held his or her tongue. Comments on Zaki normally included one of the following words: "liar," "traitor" or "pig."

The Committee of the Residents of Nahr al-Bared organized a rally the day after Zaki's visit. Although relatively unstructured, the group is quite active and was created in reaction to the inactivity of the camp's Popular Committee (which consists only of delegates from the main PLO parties). The protest march began after the Friday prayer at al-Quds mosque and proceeded along army posts at the edge of the old camp to a construction site in the south of the camp. At the site, UNRWA flattened yet another piece of land and was preparing for the building of the fifth unit of temporary shelters. In their chants, the protesters demanded the return to the old camp and the end of the siege on Nahr al-Bared and the abolishment of the Lebanese army's permit system controlling movement to and from the camp.

During the rally, Sheikh Ismail Abu Ibrahim, the young imam of the al-Quds mosque, and another spokesperson of the residents' committee, known as Abu Tayyeb, demanded the immediate end to the construction of the new barracks as long as the reconstruction in the old camp was delayed. Abu Tayyeb further criticized corruption and nepotism in the reconstruction process and asked rhetorically, "Why was the rebuilding of the old camp constantly being delayed?" The implicit answer was that the Lebanese authorities did not actually intend to rebuild the camp. He told the crowd, "The laying of the foundation stone and the ceremony were nothing but a lie!"

Only the first names of interviewees were used to protect the identity of those living under the strict Lebanese army control of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp.

Academic freedom controversy brewing at University of California

2009-05-21T09:58:00.001+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10541.shtml

Academic freedom controversy brewing at University of California
Max Ajl, The Electronic Intifada, 20 May 2009

A controversy is quickening at the University of California centered around William Robinson, professor of sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and a critic of globalization, capitalism and United States imperialism in Latin America. On 19 January, Robinson sent an e-mail message to the students in his Sociology of Globalization class containing some sharply critical commentary on Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip.

Robinson wrote that:

"Gaza is Israel's Warsaw -- a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians, subjecting them to the slow death of malnutrition, disease and despair, nearly two years before their subjection to the quick death of Israeli bombs. We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide ... a process whose objective is not so much to physically eliminate each and every Palestinian than to eliminate the Palestinians as a people in any meaningful sense of the notion of people-hood."

He added that Israel was "founded on the negation of a people," and sent along an article by a Jewish writer savaging Israeli policies (when it was published by The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle, the editor responsible was immediately fired), as well as juxtaposed images of the Palestinian dead in Gaza and the Jewish dead from the Holocaust.

Some of his students didn't think the e-mail acceptable, and apparently trundled off to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of Southern California and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, querying how they should proceed. The ADL of Southern California drafted a letter to Robinson and copied UCSB senior academic bureaucrats. The letter, dated 9 February, notes that Robinson "crossed the line well beyond legitimate criticism of Israel," adding that "we urge you to unequivocally repudiate them."

Cynthia Silverman, the ADL's Santa Barbara regional director, told InsideHigherEd that concerned students had contacted her after receiving the e-mail. She added that the ADL wasn't attempting to quell criticism of Israel, but that "the question is at what point is academic freedom crossing over into the intimidation of students." When asked if any students had complained that Robinson had taken punitive action against them for "pro-Israel" views or wouldn't allow them free expression, she said that they hadn't.

Silverman decided that the issue of "punitive action" was tangential to the real issue, which was Robinson's distribution of material completely unrelated to his course, adding that the ADL does not contest "his right to present controversial material relevant to a course of instruction," but said that the critique of Israel "really had nothing to do with the course."

In that spirit, the students dutifully drafted letters, sent them off in late February to Professor Martin Scharlemann, UCSB's Academic Senate Charges Officer, accusing Robinson of breaking with accepted standards of faculty behavior. One student's e-mail called this an "abuse of the educator position ... To hide behind a computer and send this provocative e-mail shows poor judgment and perhaps a warped personality."

That same student in turn segued from an attack on Robinson's psychology to accusations of bigotry, saying that he "clearly states his anti-Semitic political views in these emails." The other student was a tad more circumspect, writing that "The demonization of Israel, or vilification of Israeli leaders ... indicates an anti-Semitic bias rather than a valid criticism of policy."

According to UCSB professor of sociology Geoff Raymond, as the Academic Senate Charges Officer, Scharlemann should have dismissed the students' complaints outright, or should have sought to arrive at an "informal resolution" of the matter before proceeding to formal channels, or could have worked things out with the department chair, or the dean.

Instead Scharlemann sent Robinson an e-mail explaining why the investigation was going ahead to the next stage, stating that:

"[H]ere is a summary of the allegations: You, as professor of an academic course, sent to each student enrolled in that course a highly partisan email accompanied by lurid photographs. The e-mail was unexpected and without educational context. You offered no explanation of how the material related to the content of the course. You offered no avenue to discuss, nor encouraged any response, to the opinions and photographs included in the e-mail. You directly told a student who inquired that the e-mail was not connected to the course. As a result, two enrolled students were too distraught to continue with the course. The constellation of allegations listed above, if substantially true, may violate the Faculty Code of Conduct."

In a letter calling for Scharlemann to be replaced as Charges Officer, Raymond states that the correct procedure was not followed as outlined in the faculty code of conduct. The faculty code explicitly states that "a written response should be solicited after an ad hoc committee has been formed, and after the faculty member has been informed of the specific charges against him." Because Scharlemann solicited "a written declaration from the faculty member before he had reached a decision to form an ad hoc committee," Professor Robinson "could not know where he was in the process, and therefore could not adequately respond to the Charges Officer's request."

According to Professor of History Herbert Marcuse, the ADL's Abraham Foxman got involved in the case after the initial exchanges between Scharlemann and Robinson regarding the students' complaints. On 9 March, Foxman had a meeting with several deans and faculty members. Although the meeting had "no specific agenda items," one professor explained that "Foxman was there to discuss the situation of Jewish students on campus." During the meeting Foxman demanded that Robinson be investigated "for introducing materials critical of Israeli state policies in a course on globalization."

Foxman has historically not been very demure when confronted with what he calls "anti-Semitism." Marcuse explained that "when the meeting started, Foxman made clear that the only agenda point was his demand that I be investigated," adding that such scare-mongering is standard ADL policy, but that Foxman's intercession at UCSB is a serious scale-up of external pressure.

Marcuse adds that "When the meeting started, Foxman quickly launched into what I would call a rant about what he said was an anti-Semitic email that Professor Robinson sent to his class ... Nothing else was discussed."

Robinson denies the accusations in the strongest terms, adding that he himself is Jewish, that a class on the Sociology of Globalization by definition includes the Israel-Palestine conflict, and that sending a strongly-worded e-mail to students in no way constitutes a violation of accepted faculty comportment.

Furthermore, Robinson's supporters argue, the definitions that the students rely upon, echoing or borrowing from the European Union and US State Department inventions, are chimeras, conflating "demonization" of the Israeli state, and "vilification" of Israeli leaders with anti-Semitism -- prejudice against Jews.

UCSB's Committee to Defend Academic Freedom notes that "We believe these allegations have been brought in order to silence any criticism of Israeli policies and practices." The campaign to safeguard Robinson's career has attracted the support of scores of students, activists and university professors, including Noam Chomsky, and Maurice Zeitlin of UCLA.

It has also mustered support from surprising sectors, in particular Alan Wolfe's blog on the The New Republic website. Wolfe stated that "The idea of investigating him is appalling and the ADL should be ashamed of itself ... there can be little doubt who is trying to intimidate [who] here ... [the ADL] has become part and parcel of the thought police, monitoring campuses for any sign of what it considers offensive speech and putting pressure to bear on university administrators to stop it."

Robinson has retained legal counsel. UCSB is holding an open forum on 21 May to discuss the affair, which by now has attracted significant attention. Meanwhile, the formal disciplinary process proceeds apace within the university.

"Max Ajl is a writer and activist from Brooklyn, New York. He's written about Latin American politics and economics for the Guardian, the New Statesman, and North American Congress on Latin America

Urgent need to set up more camps for Pakistan’s displaced, says U

2009-05-21T09:45:00.001+03:00

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30856&Cr=pakistan&Cr1=

Urgent need to set up more camps for Pakistan's displaced, says UN agency

Displaced people shortly after reaching Jalala camp in North West Frontier Province, Pakistan

20 May 2009 – With thousands of people uprooted by violence in north-west Pakistan continuing to make their way to safety, the United Nations refugee agency said today it is crucial to set up more camps and ensure speedy access to assistance.

Almost 1.5 million people have escaped fighting between Government troops and militants in the Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in recent weeks, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"Thousands of displaced people continue to arrive in camps and to approach registration centres," UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva today.

He said that on average, some 100,000 people have been registered daily in the 89 registration points established in Mardan, Swabi, Nowshera, Peshawar, Kohat and Charsaddda districts of NWFP.

With reports of thousands of new arrivals in Abottabad, Manshera and Haripur districts, the agency is planning to help set up more registration centres to ensure the internally displaced persons (IDPs) can get the help they need as quickly as possible, he added.

Of the nearly 1.5 million people that have fled so far, some 131,000 people are staying in camps, with more than 1.3 million staying in private accommodation, with host families or friends, and some in schools.

The new influx is in addition to the over half a million people registered in NWFP who had fled other parts of the north-west, including the tribal areas, over several months since August 2008.

"Most of the 15 new camps established this month in response to the new influx are already full," noted Mr. Redmond. "There is an urgent need to identify new sites and establish new camps."

UNHCR is also helping the NWFP Ministry of Social Welfare to carry out a 'fast track' registration process to ensure people can get assistance. It is discussing with authorities a process to cross-check and verify data in a way that will identify duplicate registrations, inconsistencies and remove people from the earlier influx who may have returned home.

High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, who wrapped up a three-day visit to the area last weekend, has called on the international community for a massive influx of support to assist the surging numbers of uprooted people in the South Asian nation.

Ban briefed by head of UN rights probe into Gaza conflict

2009-05-21T09:41:00.000+03:00

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30862&Cr=gaza&Cr1=
Ban briefed by head of UN rights probe into Gaza conflict

20 May 2009 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was briefed today by the head of the independent team of investigators tasked by the United Nations Human Rights Council with examining alleged rights abuses and violations of international law during the recent Gaza conflict.

Mr. Ban's meeting with Justice Richard Goldstone of South Africa took place in Geneva, where the Human Rights Council is based and where the Secretary-General today wrapped up a five-day trip that also took him to Bahrain.

During the meeting, which was also attended by members of Justice Goldstone's team and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, Mr. Ban reiterated his support to the work of the mission.

The Secretary-General said he hoped the mission's work would proceed smoothly with cooperation by the concerned parties and send a positive message to the international community about accountability, according to his spokesperson.

Speaking to reporters today, Justice Goldstone said he was "disappointed" that he had not received any positive response from the Israeli Government.

He said his wish was to visit southern Israel, go into Gaza "through the front door," and also go to the West Bank, which is to be included in his mission.

The former prosecutor for International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda added that the mission was still in the planning stage, and that he would be holding a number of public hearings – hopefully in the region, but if that was not possible, then in Geneva.

Field work had to be completed by the end of June, he noted, and the team's report will be handed over on 4 August.

UN: Gaza inquiry will continue even without Israeli cooperation

2009-05-21T08:52:00.000+03:00

http://www.imemc.org/article/60480

UN: Gaza inquiry will continue even without Israeli cooperation

The United Nations Gaza Inquiry team announced Tuesday that they will move forward with the investigation of the January Israeli military invasion of Gaza, despite Israel's refusal to cooperate.

Richard Goldstone, who heads the inquiry team, said that he was "disappointed" by Israel's refusal to even issue the team visas, but said that this will not hinder the group from moving forward with their investigation. Goldstone said that if they are unable to enter the Gaza Strip through Israel, they will enter through the Egyptian side instead.

The United Nations investigation is meant to determine whether Israel or Hamas committed war crimes during Israel's 3-week long assault on Gaza in January.

Goldstone, the chief prosecutor of the inquiry team, was a former prosecutor of South African war criminals. He said the team had planned to visit towns in southern Israel that were hit by Palestinian homemade shells, but since Israel will not allow them to enter, they may be forced to examine only the situation in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli ambassador stated that the UN Human Rights Council, of which the investigative team is a part, treats Israel "unfairly", adding that "justice cannot be the outcome of this mission".

Israel goes cold on plan for regional peace deal

2009-05-20T13:56:00.001+03:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-goes-cold-on-plan-for-regional-peace-deal-1687794.html

Israel goes cold on plan for regional peace deal

Defence minister backs Netanyahu's refusal to endorse Palestinian state

Palestinian Bedouin feed their animals near the Maale Adumimm Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank

The Israeli Defence Minister yesterday issued one of the government's bluntest warnings against linkage between its stance on a two-state solution with the Palestinians and efforts to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power.

In what also appeared to be a defence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not committing himself to a Palestinian state, Ehud Barak declared: "These... words will not cause Iran to stop its centrifuges."

The Labour leader added: "Israel has already said in the past 'two states for two peoples' and this didn't cause the Palestinians to fall into our arms and reach all the tough decisions that are required."

Mr Netanyahu said after talks with President Obama at the White House on Monday that he was willing to open immediate talks with the moderate Palestinian leadership. But he again failed – unlike President Obama – to say that the goal would be a Palestinian state. Israeli officials insisted that while Mr Netanyahu's choice of words did not endorse a Palestinian state, they did not condemn it either.

The Israeli government remains sceptical about the emerging view in Washington that progress between Israel and the Palestinians would help to create an international – including Arab – alliance to thwart Iran's perceived nuclear ambitions.

Amid a series of differences between the US and Israel's right wing-led government over Jewish settlements, Iran, and a two-state solution, one possible area of common ground began tentatively to emerge in the wake of the White House meeting. This is the idea of "phased normalisation" by the Arab states in return for movement by Israel towards Palestinian demands.

Thinking in Washington continues to evolve on a possible comprehensive regional solution in the Middle East, though it is not yet clear how much detail the US President will go into when he makes a major speech on America's relations with the Muslim world in Cairo on 4 June.

But while stressing the need for Israel to seize the opportunity for a lasting solution with the Palestinians, Mr Obama told reporters after his meeting with Mr Netanyahu: "The other Arab states have to be more supportive and be bolder in seeking potential normalisation with Israel."

The principle involved in "phased normalisation" is that Arab states would grant gradual moves towards recognition of Israel in return for it making progress with the Palestinians. Diplomats put forward a hypothetical example of removal of settlement outposts or real settlement freeze in the West Bank being "rewarded" by Gulf States allowing the Israeli airline El Al to use their airspace. Most Arab states – while promising recognition of Israel in return for an actual Palestinian state broadly on 1967 borders – have long opposed the phasing idea on the grounds that such "concessions" by Israel are in any case required by international – and, in the case of outposts, Israeli– law.

A prominent settlers' leader, Danny Dayan, predicted yesterday that the Knesset "will stand by our side" if there was any attempt to freeze settlement building in the West Bank. But a leading Israeli analyst, Yossi Alpher, yesterday challenged the view that internal political constraints would prevent Mr Netanyahu from meeting US demands on settlements, especially if such agreement was accompanied by understandings on how to deal with Iran. "If the pressure is strong enough, backed sufficiently by an enlightened President, Netanyahu will feel obliged to respond and this government can absorb it. It won't collapse," he said.

Israel is continuing to resist international pressure by moving ahead with a series of settler-driven demolitions of Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem and is continuing the previous government's policy of building in existing settlements. And Benny Begin, a minister in Mr Netanyahu's Likud party, will this week attend a prize giving for Noam Arnon, the leader of the notably hardline Hebron settlers for his achievements in "putting Zionism into action".

The issues: Obstacles to peace

Settlements Israel is under renewed pressure to end settlements in East Jerusalem and stop expanding existing ones in West Bank. Successive governments have promised to remove illegal outposts but felt able to ignore pressure from George Bush.

Palestinian State Netanyahu is resisting US pressure to declare he wants it but says he is ready for immediate economic, security, and political talks with the Palestinians, and will remove roadblocks to encourage "economic peace".

Hamas role The split between the Palestinians is a major stumbling block. Hillary Clinton seems willing to ease the path to a unity government. But it's not clear either Hamas or Fatah are seriously interested in putting an end to their differences.

Syria Netanyahu has said he will never give up the Golan Heights and he doubts Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's good faith in seeking talks. But a Syria-Israel-US agreement could be part of a regional deal that Barak Obama is thinking about.

Iran Israel is still sceptical that US efforts at dialogue with Tehran will bear fruit and has not ruled out military strike. Obama says any talks with Iran will not be open-ended and that no options are off the table, but stresses tougher economic sanctions.

Israeli settler leader says: 'We are running rings round the authorities'

2009-05-20T13:14:00.003+03:00

James Hider in Kiryat Arba

As President Obama was telling Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, this week that all Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank must stop, in the huge settlement of Kiryat Arba on the edge of Hebron, one of the founders of the settler movement was explaining why that will not happen.

Elyakim Haetzni, 82, a German-born former lawyer, detailed how the settlers had run rings around the authorities’ half-hearted attempts to prevent settlement growth, and scoffed at the idea of a freeze.

Settlers and Israel’s anti-occupation peace camp agree on one thing: settlement growth far outstrips normal population increases inside Israel.

“In all these years of the freeze, the growth in population in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) was two to three times greater than in other parts of the country,” said Mr Haetzni, an articulate elder of Kiryat Arba.

Settlers complain that pressure to prevent their controversial hilltop towns and villages across the West Bank is strangling their communities, preventing people from raising families or expanding their homes.

In Noqdim, near Bethlehem, Michal Kupinsky, who organises cultural events in the settlement where Avigdor Lieberman, the Foreign Minister, lives, said that there was a waiting list of up to 50 families wanting to move in, largely because a road linking it to Jerusalem had been opened up two years ago, after being off-limits to Israelis for security reasons.

Israeli state radio said this week that settlements were expanding across the West Bank and in the Jordan Valley. Yet the Government of Mr Netanyahu, and his centrist predecessor, have claimed to be clamping down on them. “It is both at the same time,” said Mr Haetzni. “If there were no freeze we could have built three or four times more. But it’s true on the other side that there is also no freeze. In Kiryat Arba recently we brought in 20 caravans. There was no response from the authorities. We have places where houses were built illegally. Whether the American satellite has caught it I don’t know.”

What Mr Netanyahu describes as a permissible “natural growth” is, in fact, a long-running cat and mouse game designed to wear down the authorities by a determined group of zealots who believe history is on their side.

Mr Haetzni, who lost relatives in the Holocaust and who was severely wounded fighting Arab armies in 1948, said that the settlers had smuggled the mobile homes into Kiryat Arba in pieces, then assembled them as a new neighbourhood.

“We live in caves, we buy tents,” he said, citing the case of the evacuation of the settler outpost of Homesh in the northern West Bank two years ago as a prime example. “There’s a new movement of return to Homesh” he said.

“Even if [the police] reach the top of the hill the people disperse, they have to chase our people through Arab villages, so they give up. For almost two years there has been this cat and mouse game, and the authorities are fed up and they ran out of money; anything they destroy is built again.”

Mr Haetzni said that sympathisers in the security forces tipped off the Homesh settlers before a raid. Soldiers who fought in Gaza confirmed that combat units once largely made up of kibbutzniks — that formed the backbone of the Jewish state in its early days — were now largely made up of members of the national-religious community, from which the settler movement draws so much support.

Mr Haetzni said that it was a natural process caused by the collapse of the kibbutz movement and the passing of the Zionist torch to the right-wing. He said the army could not be used to evacuate the estimated 250,000 settlers now living in the West Bank.

“It goes against the grain of the country. You can’t take the Zionist state and cut the Zionism out,” he said.

Displacement in Pakistan largest and fastest in years, says UN re

2009-05-20T11:40:00.001+03:00

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30846&Cr=pakistan&Cr1=

Displacement in Pakistan largest and fastest in years, says UN refugee agency

A displaced Pakistani girl carries a bucket of rice as her sister follows in Yar Hussain camp.

19 May 2009 – Almost 1.5 million people have escaped fighting between Government troops and Taliban militants in north-west Pakistan, the United Nations refugee agency said today, calling the displacement the largest and fastest to occur anywhere in the world in recent years.

According to the Social Welfare Department of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), 1.45 million people have been registered in 89 centres since 2 May.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres, who wrapped up a three-day visit to the area this weekend, has called on the international community for a massive influx of support to assist the surging numbers of uprooted people.

"It's like trying to catch something that's moving ahead of us because the number of people on the move every day is so big and the response is never enough," he said. "Leaving this population without the support they need – with such massive numbers – could constitute an enormous destabilizing factor."

Fewer than 10 per cent of the displaced are seeking shelter in camps, and the 1.5 million who have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) recently join over 500,000 others who fled clashes last year, bringing the total number of displaced to just over 2 million.

UNHCR has set up a relief bank and distribution centre in the NWFP town of Nowshera to both receive and hand out supplies such as pillows and soap. Similar centres are slated to open in the cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.

The agency, in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Pakistani Government, has set up humanitarian 'hubs' where IDPs can register, receive supplies and be directed into available shelter within local communities.

For its part, WFP is dispatching record amounts of wheat flour, rice, sugar and pulses, and plans to send enough supplies to feed 1.5 million people.

Palestinian refugee family demands to return home

2009-05-19T11:19:00.000+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10536.shtml
Palestinian refugee family demands to return home

Rami Almeghari writing from occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 18 May 2009

Suleiman Abu Jazzar in his home in the Brazil refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. (Rami Almeghari)

"Only if we return to our homeland, can there be peace. But as long as [Israel] keeps us refugees, we have no choice to resist them now and for generations to come, until we are back in Beir al-Saba," said 75-year-old Suleiman Abu Jazzar in his home in the Brazil refugee camp in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.

Along with more than 700,000 other Palestinians, Abu Jazzar was forced from historic Palestine by Zionist forces in 1948, a period referred to by Palestinians as the Nakba (catastrophe) and commemorated in mid-May while Israel celebrates its "Independence Day." During 1947-48, Zionist paramilitary groups -- which later formed the Israeli army -- attacked and destroyed more than 450 Palestinian towns and villages. Abu Jazzar's town of Beir al-Saba was given the Hebrew name of Beersheva by its conquerers.

Abu Jazzar and his family are amongst the more than 4.5 million registered Palestinian refugees living in camps in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon -- unable to return to their land, though their right to return is enshrined in international law. There are millions of other Palestinians scattered around the globe comprising the Diaspora, a nation in exile.

"Prior to 1948, we used to live peacefully and happily in our hometown of Beer al-Saba. All out of a sudden, armed Jewish groups attacked the town and displaced my family including myself, as well as many other families," recalled Abu Jazzar.

"In that period, we fled [to the outskirts of] Beir al-Saba, leaving behind us heaps of barley, our main harvest at that time. When night falls, I recall that myself and other youths of the town, used to sneak into these heaps to bring food for hungry children and women.

"After a while, the Jews began to spot us, and finally we were all displaced form the whole area, leading us to the Gaza Strip, where me and my family were settled in the Rafah area here," Abu Jazzar said while laying on a sofa in a traditionally-decorated room.

Asked whether residents of Beir al-Saba resisted the Zionist forces, Abu Jazzar put much blame on the Arab countries and armies for the Palestinian refugees' situation.

"There were no Israeli warplanes at that time, only tanks. Also, their numbers were not that big, but unfortunately we had no guns or weapons. I only recall that someone from the Barahma tribe had a gun. I really blame the Arab armies, which failed us. Their weapons were not that effective. These armies did not even train us how to fight; we were merely farmers and had nothing to do with armament. They are to be blamed for our plight."

Abu Jazzar endured not only the 1948 dispossession, but he witnessed and survived other Israeli wars and conflicts that he described as more Nakbas for the Palestinian people.

"In 1956, the occupation forces invaded our towns here in Gaza, using tanks and armored vehicles. Also, in 1967, they invaded us again and continued to occupy us until recently. They are not leaving us, they don't want us to live peacefully," he said.

More recently, Israeli army launched a three-week comprehensive attack on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,400 Palestinians -- the majority of them civilians. During this war, Abu Jazzar's asbestos-roofed house was partially damaged, as Israeli forces destroyed many houses in his neighborhood.

"Only God saved us during the Gaza war, the [Israelis] only want to destroy us completely. I didn't go anywhere during the war; my family and I remained at the house. Where to go? ... In 1948, we left our house and left our farm lands, thinking we would return in a few days. But as you see, son, we are here for 61 years now, and who knows how long we will remain so?"

Umm Salah, Abu Jazzar's 70-year-old wife, sang a Palestinian folk song about the events of 1948: "You have made us refugees. When we fled al-Ramla and Beir al-Saba, heading to Gaza, carrying our luggage on our shoulders, we wondered: what did you do for us, Ben Gurion [Israel's first prime minister], you brought us a Nakba!"

Sighing deeply, she said that only God protects them, but she hopes for peace, nevertheless.

"It is true that they are more powerful than us, but where can we go -- where? We just resist them by our steadfastness on this land, sticking to our homes," Umm Salah said.

Both Abu Jazzar and Umm Salah said that they would refuse to take monetary compensation instead of a return to their town of origin. "Our history is there in Palestine," they said together, "in Beir al-Saba. How could we sell our history?"

The now elderly refugees have evidently passed down their profound connection to their land to their 28-year-old daughter, Laila, who said with great emotion:

"What peace are they talking about? Every day they kill us, our families have lived the suffering for 61 years now. ... If there is a truce, this truce cannot last, as they aim to destroy us completely. Look at the last Israeli war on us, they killed many people. We should keep steadfast, until we return to our hometown of Beir al-Saba. We can never accept any compensation, even if we all die one after another."

Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.

Edinburgh film fest returns Israeli funding

2009-05-19T10:53:00.001+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10535.shtml

Edinburgh film fest returns Israeli funding

Press release, Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 18 May 2009

The 2009 Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) organizers announced on Friday they were returning money donated by the Israeli embassy. The return of the money was accompanied by an admission that it had been "a mistake to accept the 300 [British pounds] from the Israeli embassy" and followed a torrent of angry letters expressing incomprehension, fury or sadness at the EIFF being associated with the Israeli state. Many pledged to support Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) pickets of screenings throughout the 2009 Festival, and an initial public protest planned for the following day.

Many were shocked at such a public association with the pariah state so soon after the massacres in Gaza, given Israel's continuing siege and its ongoing ethnic cleansing and illegal settlement in the West Bank. The EIFF was also pressured into returning money to the Israeli embassy in the wake of the Israeli massacres (during their defeat) in Lebanon in 2006.

Filmmakers and artists pointed out that the EIFF's claim to separate culture and politics is absurd, while Israel harshly suppresses Palestinian efforts to hold cultural events, most recently in March in Jerusalem and Nazareth. Ken Loach, one of the UK's most prominent filmmakers, joined in the effort, and issued a statement through the SPSC:

"I'm sure many filmmakers will be as horrified as I am to learn that the Edinburgh International Film Festival is accepting money from Israel. The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make this money unacceptable. With regret, I must urge all who might consider visiting the festival to show their support for the Palestinian nation, and stay away."

We welcome the outcome whereby the festival organizers have returned Israel's tainted money, thus aligning the Edinburgh International Film Festival with the growing Scottish and world-wide campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the apartheid state. In a short period, anger at Israel's savagery in Palestine has already led, for example, to:

The Scottish TUC (Trades Union Congress) joining with its South African and Irish counterparts in committing to BDS and a re-examination of its relations with the Israeli racist pseudo-trade union, the Histadrut.

Groups of students staging occupations across many British universities to win scholarships for Gazan students and to drive Israeli companies off their campuses.

An Israeli security company, 360 Defense, going "underground" -- it had earlier boasted of the skills its personnel acquire in fighting the Palestinian freedom struggle, and its delivery of "anti-terrorism" (sic) courses to Scottish police forces.

Israeli company Eden Springs suffering a continuous hemorrhage of lost contracts, forcing the closure of its East of Scotland depot in Loanhead -- they have recently hired a public relations company to counter the growing boycott.

These unambiguous trends in civil society contrast with the unflinching support of the British government and the EU for Israel's occupation of the West Bank, for its brutal siege of Gaza and intensifying repression of Palestinian citizens inside Israel. While supporting Israeli brutality abroad, British legal authorities are taking steps to criminalize aspects of solidarity with Palestine here in the UK. With official government endorsement of such efforts, five members of the SPSC have been charged with "racially motivated conduct" and go on trial shortly. This follows a performance in Edinburgh by an Israeli ensemble, the Jerusalem Quartet, of whom it was said approvingly by admirers that "carrying a rifle in one hand and a violin in the other was the ultimate Zionist statement." SPSC carried the protest against these official "cultural ambassadors of Israel" into the concert hall and we urge others to do likewise, wherever they exchange their rifles to make "the ultimate Zionist statement" with their violins.

The upwelling of anger at Israel's crimes and natural sympathy with the Palestinian people, can now be converted everywhere into active solidarity with their struggle for freedom. BDS is the only strategy that allows people around the world to participate as auxiliaries in this struggle, and to reduce and possibly neutralize the shameful support of our governments for Israel. It won't happen automatically, but a determined campaign can succeed in mobilizing the widespread anger at Israeli racism and violence. Opinion polls everywhere show that Israel's violent ethnic cleansing is being seen for what it is, and that Palestinian resistance, however costly, has not been in vain. Israeli is, clearly and irreversibly, a polecat state, able to kill Palestinians in huge numbers but extremely vulnerable to a world-wide campaign of boycott.

We must keep our eyes on the prize: freedom for the people in Israel's vast gulag. Our contribution to that will be a mass campaign of BDS. We in SPSC have already chosen our next targets and we have not the slightest doubt that popular opinion will support us. Our opponents know this.

King decorates UNRWA

2009-05-19T10:40:00.000+03:00

http://www.un.org/unrwa/news/articles/2009/King_decorates_UNRWA_may09.html

King decorates UNRWA

His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday presents the Istiqlal Medal
of the First Order to UNRWA Commissioner General Karen AbuZayd
in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Rania (Photo by Yousef Allan)

DEAD SEA (JT) - His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday bestowed the Istiqlal Medal of the First Order on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in recognition of the agency's 60 years of service to Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA Commissioner General Karen AbuZayd received the award on the agency's behalf, following a meeting with King Abdullah and Her Majesty Queen Rania.

During the meeting, King Abdullah stressed the need to provide all possible support to UNRWA in executing its humanitarian work for Palestinian refugees. He especially commended UNRWA's assistance to the Palestinians during the recent Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

King Abdullah said Jordan would continue its support for UNRWA, and noted that the Jordan Armed Forces field hospital in Gaza, which provides medical services to the Palestinian people, will continue to complement the work that UNRWA is doing in Gaza.

During the meeting, the King also emphasised the refugees' rights to return and compensation.

"I am deeply honoured to have been invited to meet Their Majesties, particularly as this was my first meeting with the King," AbuZayd said following the meeting.

"I remain extremely grateful for their continuing personal involvement with Palestine refugees and with our work at UNRWA," she added.

"In this, our 60th anniversary year, it is important to pay tribute to our friends in this region and those such as our partners in Jordan who have given to us and the refugees so generously over six decades. But it is also important to take stock and remind the world that 60 years of exile and statelessness is unacceptable, and that a political resolution for the refugees must be found."

Source: UNRWA

UN efforts focusing on plight of civilians in post-conflict Sri L

2009-05-19T10:33:00.000+03:00

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30837&Cr=sri-lanka&Cr1=

UN efforts focusing on plight of civilians in post-conflict Sri Lanka

A UNHCR staff member talks to displaced people in northern Sri Lanka

18 May 2009 – The United Nations is closely watching the situation in Sri Lanka, where the Government has declared an end to its military operation against Tamil separatists, while focusing on assisting the hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the conflict, a top United Nations official said today.

"The situation is volatile so the facts are not as clear as one might hope," Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told a news conference in New York.

The Government of Sri Lanka has declared that its military operation against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north-east of the country has come to an end and that all the civilians that were trapped in the conflict zone have left.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) had estimated that over 50,000 people were still in the conflict zone, a shrinking pocket of land on the northern coastline, as of last week.

"Obviously, we're relieved that the fighting is finished and hope that all the civilians are indeed out of that zone and indeed heading for safety," said Mr. Holmes, who is also UN Emergency Relief Coordinator.

"But it's hard for us to be absolutely sure about that for the moment. That is one of the things that we're trying to check, but we believe that the civilians are actually out of that zone on the basis of what we know at the moment."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is considering a visit to the country, dispatched his Chief of Staff, Vijay Nambiar, to the country last week.

Mr. Nambiar is "engaged in close consultation with Government officials and others on how best to respond to the humanitarian situation of the large number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and initiate a process for early recovery and long-term reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction," UN spokesperson Marie Okabe said today.

"The situation calls for maximum care and restraint in dealing with the large number of civilians and their humanitarian and security needs, as well as with surrendering LTTE cadres," she added.

OCHA estimates that there are around 220,000 people who have already reached the IDP camps, including 20,000 in the last two or three days. In addition, it is believed that another 40,000-60,000 people are on their way to the camps through the crossing point at Omanthai.

Mr. Holmes noted that the large influx of people poses "major humanitarian challenges" in terms of providing shelter and other basic services, such as food, clean water and medical services. "The conditions in these camps are certainly not ideal. They're not up to international standards yet but everybody is working very hard to try to make sure that they are."

Other issues of concern include the civilian nature of the camps, freedom of movement, distribution of identification cards to those in the camps, family reunification, and access to the camps, he said. "We've had full access so far and we hope that will be maintained because that's absolutely vital for us."

Mr. Holmes added that the UN does not have any figures or reliable information on the death toll. "But we have fears that in the course of the last few days of the campaign there were extra deaths of civilians, despite all the efforts that may have been made to avoid that," he said.

Somalia: humanitarian needs on upswing due to drought, violence –

2009-05-18T22:32:00.000+03:00

Somalia: humanitarian needs on upswing due to drought, violence – UN

A woman and her child in Galgadud, Somalia where an acute water shortage has hit the region

18 May 2009 – Drought and continuing violence are driving Somalia's humanitarian needs upward, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today, adding that only one-third of the nearly $1 billion in funds sought for the country have been received so far.

At least 3.2 million people – or 40 per cent of the Horn of Africa nation's population – will continue to need humanitarian assistance and livelihood support through this September, with latest assessments indicating that current rains could offer short-term relief from water and pasture shortages in some areas.

The food segment of the UN's Consolidate Appeal Process (CAP) has been the best-funded so far at 42 per cent, but the World Food Programme (WFP) said that it needs an additional $60 million to cover needs for the next six months.

Clashes between Government forces and insurgents in the capital, Mogadishu, between 8-14 May were the worst in recent months, claiming civilian lives and displacing 42,000 people.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), half of the uprooted have fled to Mogadishu's neighbouring Afgooye district, which is already home to over 400,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs).

WFP, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and their partners are seeking how to scale up their nutritional intervention schemes to reach additional severely acute malnourished and moderately acute malnourished children, OCHA said.

Last week, the Security Council demanded that militant groups in Somalia immediately end their offensive in the capital against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), expressing concern over the mounting death toll and worsening humanitarian situation in the capital.

In a presidential statement read out by Ambassador Vitaly Churkin of Russia, which holds the rotating Council presidency for May, the 15-member body also condemned the recent surge in violence.

Source: UN News Agency

Number of uprooted in north-west Pakistan tops 1 million – UN ref

2009-05-18T22:19:00.000+03:00

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30824&Cr=Pakistan&Cr1=
Number of uprooted in north-west Pakistan tops 1 million – UN refugee agency

UNHCR High Commissioner António Guterres visits IDPs in Kacha Gari camp near Peshawar.

18 May 2009 – The top United Nations refugee official has wrapped up a visit to Pakistan, where he appealed for urgent international assistance for people displaced by clashes between Government forces and militants – whose numbers topped 1 million over the weekend – in the South Asian nation's north-west.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres characterized the displacement crisis as one of the most dramatic in recent times, noting that aid workers are struggling to reach out to the growing number of displaced people.

"It's like trying to catch something that's moving ahead of us because the number of people on the move every day is so big and the response is never enough," he told reporters before ending his three-day visit to the region.

"Leaving this population without the support they need – with such massive numbers – could constitute an enormous destabilizing factor," Mr. Guterres cautioned.

Most of the 1.17 million people who have escaped the violence are staying with relatives or friends, placing tremendous strain on the country, while over 130,000 others are seeking refuge in UNHCR-supported camps.

The over 1 million recently displaced join a further 555,000 Pakistanis uprooted by fighting since last August.

During his visit to Pakistan, Mr. Guterres was told by internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in camps that they are anxious to return to their homes.

"Each person has suffered a lot, having to abandon their community, sometimes their families, houses and properties, coming with nothing, and sometimes having to witness family or friends die," he said. "The amount of suffering needs to be recognized by the international community."

Both the UN and the Pakistani Government will issue appeals for funding, the High Commissioner said, estimating the funds needed to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Calling for a massive response from donor nations, he stressed that "it's not only a matter of generosity, it's a matter of enlightened self-interest."

Last week, UNHCR airlifted 120 tons of relief supplies – including mosquito nets, plastic sheets and portable warehouses – to the area.

Source: UN News Agency

Tough life for Palestinians in neglected 'gatherings'

2009-05-18T16:39:00.001+03:00

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84429

LEBANON: Tough life for Palestinians in neglected 'gatherings'

These are the people expelled from their homes and dispossessed to make room for the Jewish immigrants and create the so-called only democracy in the Middle East, the state of Israel. PalNews24

Photo: Hugh Macleod/IRIN

Palestinian Ali Hindawi, 84, has lived in a shed in south Lebanon for over 30 years. Such "gatherings" receive few services from either UNRWA or the state

KAFR BADA, 18 May 2009 (IRIN) - For the last 30 years Ali Mohammed Hindawi, aged 84, has lived alone in a rusty tin shack in south Lebanon, without water, electricity or a toilet, sleeping among chickens, flies and litter, and separated from his family by displacement and poverty.

"What do I think about at night? I think about my situation, that this is not a life for me," said the frail old man, barely able to sit up after weathering another winter of freezing temperatures and downpours. "It is the life of a dog. All I want is to spend my last few years in a good way."

Hindawi is one of tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who live in unofficial "gatherings", collections of homes built without official permission and left largely unserviced, by either the Lebanese state, the Palestinian Authority (PA) or the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA.

Driven from his home by Israeli troops who overran northern Galilee in 1948, the young Hindawi crossed into Lebanon and settled in an UNRWA tent, set up in the Kafr Bada area of south Lebanon, near Qasmiyeh river.

Many of these tents later grew into officially recognised refugee camps, with fixed boundaries and services provided by UNRWA. But for refugees like Hindawi - or Zahra Saeed and her family of 13 children living across the river in the Qasmiyeh "gathering" - no such certainties exist.

Photo: Hugh Macleod/IRIN

The Norwegian Refugee Council is hoping to secure funds to upgrade poor housing like Palestinian Ali Hindawi's shed in south Lebanon

Neglected

"There has been no real interest in the `gatherings', only in the camps," said Ghazi al-Hassan, secretary of the Palestinian Popular Committee in Kafr Bada. "Now there's a limit to the PA's budget so they send very little here."

Without a mandate to operate outside the 12 official refugee camps in Lebanon, home to around half the 400,000 Palestinians, UNRWA only makes food deliveries to Kafr Bada and other "gatherings" once every three months. With a budget of just US$100 a month, al-Hassan's Popular Committee can do little more than collect rubbish and pay transport costs.

NGOs such as the Lebanese Popular Aid for Relief and Development (PARD) try to fill the gap in the dozens of "gatherings" across the country.

Hindawi - like the partially blind Mariam Dyabissa, a 94-year-old Palestinian refugee who shares her tin hut in Qasmiyeh with her mentally ill son - relies on kindly neighbours to bring him food, wash and dress him and light the fire at night.

Survey

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is now conducting the first comprehensive household survey of Palestinian gatherings in Lebanon, which include areas adjacent to UNRWA camps. In the northern Nahr al-Bared camp, largely destroyed in fighting two years ago, reconstruction in the adjacent areas has been hampered by the absence of a clear mandate for any one agency to lead efforts inside Palestinian "gatherings".

Photo: Hugh Macleod/IRIN

In the Qasmiyeh gathering, Zahra Saeed said her home of two rooms leaks when it rains, meaning little sleep for her 13 children

"Nahr al-Bared highlighted the issue. Lots of people think the Palestinians live in camps. They don't know there are tens of thousands living in `gatherings' in very mixed circumstances," said Richard Evans, NRC Lebanon programme manager for shelter and rehabilitation in the Palestinian `gatherings'. "We feel there is a humanitarian need. These people are not getting adequate services."

In 2005, the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) made a needs assessment of 39 "gatherings", defined as having a minimum of 25 households. It found that the right to work and own property was the refugees' main need. In the Qasmiyeh "gathering", Zahra Saeed said she had received an eviction notice from the local court every six months for the last 10 years, Palestinians being banned from owning property in Lebanon.

NRC Lebanon, whose report is due out in June, is hoping to secure $2-$3 million which it said would allow them to upgrade the homes of around 250 families living in "gatherings" in south Lebanon.

For Ali Hindawi, that could mean spending his last days with at least a weatherproof concrete wall and door. But that may be little comfort in a life of such hardship. "If I feel happy or sad it doesn't matter," he said. "No one cares about me."

West Bank Becomes Waste Land

2009-05-18T10:24:00.001+03:00

West Bank Becomes Waste Land

By Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, May 15 (IPS/IFEJ) - Israel has found a cheap and easy way to get rid of its waste, much of it hazardous: dump it into the West Bank. A few Palestinians can be bought, the rest are in no position to complain.

"Israel has been dumping waste, including hazardous and toxic waste, into the West Bank for years as a cheaper and easier alternative to processing it properly in Israel at appropriate hazardous waste management sites," Palestinian Environmental Authority (PEA) deputy director Jamil Mtoor told IPS.

Shuqbah, a village of 5,000, lies near the border of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, not far from Ramallah. Israeli companies have been using land owned by a Palestinian middleman in the village to dump tonnes of garbage for as little as 30 dollars per tonne, significantly cheaper than dumping it at Israeli waste sites.

"For several years Israeli companies have been dumping solid and hazardous waste there," Mtoor told IPS. "The subsequent burning of toxic waste including items such as x-ray films releases carcinogens into the environment, and this has affected the population, with many people developing asthma and related illnesses."

The Israelis earlier buried the carcasses of thousands of chickens infected with the avian flu virus near Nablus in the northern West Bank, said Mtoor. The PEA also uncovered 500 barrels of insecticide in Hebron in the southern West Bank. Again, a Palestinian middleman had been paid off to accept the barrels on his property.

While the PA has arrested the individuals involved, and is taking legal action against a number of them, it is difficult to bring Palestinians cooperating with Israeli dumping companies to book.

"The Israelis are taking advantage of extremely poor individuals with large families to support and with limited sources of income, in a society with high rates of unemployment," said Mtoor.

Israel exerts complete control over more than 40 percent of the West Bank. The territory is divided into Areas A, B and C. Only Area A falls under PA control. Area B falls under Israeli and limited Palestinian jurisdiction, while Area C is controlled by Israel.

"Many of the Palestinian middlemen are protected by the Israelis. If we wish to pursue them we have to obtain the requisite Israeli permits to enter Areas B and C, and these are often refused or take a long time to get," says Mtoor.

"Furthermore, it is hard to monitor the numerous dumping sites used by Israel because the dumping is done both overtly and covertly, sometimes during the night. The locations used vary, and the Israelis cover up the sites afterwards."

Israel's illegal settlements regularly dump garbage and discharge wastewater into West Bank rivers and streams.

The Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ) says in a report that "wastewater from the settlements is not restricted to domestic effluent but includes pesticides, asbestos, batteries, cement and aluminium - which contain carcinogenic and hazardous compounds."

As Israel expropriates approximately 87 percent of the West Bank's underground aquifer, with 2.5 million Palestinians surviving on the remainder, this poses a threat to the health both of Israelis and Palestinians.

"Israeli settlers consume up to 200 litres of water daily per individual while Palestinians in the West Bank survive on 30-60 litres per individual daily," Mtoor told IPS.

Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), a joint Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian environment group, released an investigative report several years ago called 'A Seeping Time Bomb, Pollution of the Mountain Aquifer by Solid Waste'.

According to FoEME's report, unsustainable disposal of solid waste has resulted in the percolation of toxic substances including chloride, arsenic and heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury and lead into the groundwater.

"The threat to the drinking water remains to this day," FoEME spokeswoman Miri Epstein told IPS.

Israeli companies producing potentially hazardous products have relocated from within the Green Line to the Palestinian territories to avoid the strict environmental laws that control operations within Israel.

Israeli pesticides company Geshuri was forced to close operations in Kfar Sava in Israel in 1985, and relocated to Tulkarem in the northern West Bank. This followed a court order on a petition by Israeli residents who blamed the company for an increase in pollution-related health issues.

The international community and NGOs have tried to improve the situation. The German government has built a new solid waste disposal project near Ramallah, while the World Bank and the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, built a solid waste landfill facility near Jenin in the northern West Bank.

"We have the sympathy of the international community but the situation will not be resolved until there is a political resolution to the protracted Israeli- Palestinian conflict," said Mtoor.

The joint Israeli Palestinian Environmental Experts Committee, established under the Oslo Accords, has not met since 1999, and so any coordination on solid waste is ad hoc.

Gaza now faces environmental disaster following Israel's devastating war on the coastal territory earlier this year which killed 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilian, and wounded nearly 5,000.

"The environmental situation in the Gaza Strip is extremely serious and it is our priority to investigate the environmental challenges and rehabilitation priorities," Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) told IPS.

Steiner concluded a tour of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank recently during which he met with Palestinian officials and UN staff to assess the situation in both Palestinian enclaves – the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

UNEP will be sending a team of eight experts to Gaza this month to examine, amongst other things, the environmental fallout of Israel's use of illegal weapons such as white phosphorous.

The team comprises specialists in water and wastewater management, asbestos and hazardous waste monitoring, coastal and marine environmental assessment, and in institutional and economic evaluation.

"The situation prior to the war was already serious due to Gaza's inadequate infrastructure and the inability to repair waste and water treatment plants," Achim told IPS. And now it is far worse.

Israel's embargo has blocked supplies of construction material needed to repair Gaza's decimated infrastructure, and of sufficient quantities of fuel needed to run water and waste treatment plants.

"Hazardous waste and hospital waste is lying untreated. Untreated sewage has been pumped out to sea and permeated Gaza's underground water and drinking supplies, creating a potential health threat," said Steiner.

The Israeli military has more than 600 checkpoints and roadblocks situated throughout the West Bank, severely impacting movement there, and making it hard for wastewater tankers to reach many villages and towns.

"Due to the extensive closures and roadblocks in the West Bank, Palestinians don't have sufficient access to waste sites or the ability to treat waste properly," Steiner told IPS.

Source: IPS

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46858

Video: Gaza's school children still struggle after war

2009-05-18T09:28:00.001+03:00

http://imeu.net/news/article0016467.shtml

Video: Gaza's school children still struggle after war

Hamid al-Mallahi studies under a streetlight when it works, walks an hour or more to school and sleeps in a tent that could collapse at any moment. More than four months after Israel's 22-day offensive on Gaza, life for the 14 year-old-is similar to that of thousands of other children still living in makeshift camps. Al Jazeera's Casey Kauffman reports from Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii6J-TbdEmE&feature=player_embedded

Report: Israel killed 313 children in its war on Gaza

2009-05-18T06:35:00.001+03:00

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s79wTk7Wat8Udkx4pkw0jathCzytz8l%2bfMSGe4eWsnTan5cqU3yRnxURsSLGtkTRiArHaq96zhZbPPbnJU5pttcRXtcSYSK0iJxgYTQVCbbPc%3d

Report: Israel killed 313 children in its war on Gaza

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The Palestinian center for human rights reported that the last Israeli war on the Gaza Strip was the largest during 42 years of occupation, adding that 1,414 Palestinians including 313 children were killed by Israel during this war.

According to a report issued by the center entitled "The war crimes against children," 83 percent of those victims killed by the Israeli occupation forces were civilians.

The report touched on the murder of 18-year-old girl called Farah Al-Helo in January 2009 when IOF troops forced her family to leave their house in Al-Zeitoun neighborhood, east of Gaza city, and opened fire on them as they were abandoning the house leading to the death of the little girl with a bullet in her stomach.

It accused Israel of disregarding international humanitarian law, which stipulates the protection of children during armed conflicts, and of not taking appropriate precautions to distinguish between civilians and military targets.

The report said that the IOF troops bombed indiscriminately schools taken as shelters by civilians who had to flee their homes, noting that the Israeli military aggression left psychological impacts on Gaza people especially children, not to mention the large number of physical injuries sustained by thousands of them.

Lawyer Raji Al-Surani, the center's director, called on the international community to conduct a comprehensive and independent investigation of all documented attacks committed by Israel and to prosecute it for its war crimes in Gaza.

Source: PIC

Palestinian doctors conduct successfully first pacemaker implant

2009-05-18T06:26:00.001+03:00

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7s%2bb3uN5B%2bvfaO5jU%2fjF1U1xMXLq1DcE%2bMqTDO9vfm0NvqPzaXCO1jonoOIbldzD5Q0Z%2b%2fbPXNW3S4Xo5YMBjRdx%2fo99jSH2JyWyyqW2%2fSeU%3d

Palestinian doctors conduct successfully first pacemaker implant in Gaza

GAZA, (PIC)-- A Palestinian medical team at the European Gaza hospital achieved a quantum leap in cardiac surgeries after they managed for the first time to implant an artificial pacemaker to regulate the heartbeat of a patient from the Gaza Strip.

This surgical achievement will contribute to saving the lives of dozens of similar patients who are deprived of traveling to receive this kind of medical treatment outside Gaza as a result of the Israeli siege.

Doctors Mohamed Habib and Wa'el Hijazi, who performed the surgical operation, implanted the pacemaker for a 70-year-old patient called Al-Sayid Abu Warda after he had been suffering from sever heart problems.

Dr. Habib stated that the opening of a special unit for such operations in the hospital's heart division would contribute to alleviating the suffering of Gaza patients who need this kind of surgical intervention.

He added that the availability of this device which was donated by a British foundation called PIMA together with the presence of local medical cadres of high-efficiency helped significantly in conducting the first pacemaker implant in besieged Gaza.

In another medical context, the Palestinian doctors at the Nasser hospital were able during the first third of this year 2009 to conduct 8,932 surgeries including 1,884 major operations, most of them were conducted for the first time in Gaza.

In a statement received by the PIC, the hospital administration asserted that it would open new sections to accommodate the growing number of patients in need of surgical interventions especially in light of the continued closure of crossings and Israel's threats of escalating its aggression on Gaza.

In a related context, the organization of Marquis who's who in America, which provides accurate biographies and information about notable leaders and achievers, included Dr. Zakaria Al-Astal, a doctor at the Nasser hospital, in its list of influential figures around the world.

Source: PIC

Extremists from Zionist national party given Ok to make tour insi

2009-05-18T06:14:00.001+03:00

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7F7q6vyjTkAdcS7u6uxQD3WMW4acxzpvwEd9fnaIznsrbENee5Pc%2bmc%2bhi%2f90FJups0D7wnN2cCln9Kma5DxBwm7EGQAyZvJpUGifASQeuPc%3d
Extremists from Zionist national party given Ok to make tour inside Al-Khalil (Hebron)

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Israeli war minister Ehud Barak allowed members from the right-wing national party to make a tour on Monday in the H1 areas in the heart of Al-Khalil city which are under the PA control. Such a move could spark confrontations with the Palestinians in the city.

The participants in this tour will include ultra-extremist Knesset members affiliated with the national party such as Ya'akov Katz, Aryeh Eldad, Uri Ariel and Michael Ben-Ari.

The Israeli army radio said that Barak gave orders to provide the participants with military escort and armored vehicles.

Knesset member Katz justified this move by alleging that Al-Khalil city is an Israeli area like Haifa and Yafa at the pretext that the number of Palestinians in the city is less than the Jews!

Source: PIC

Abu Zaid: UNRWA deficit surpassed $30m

2009-05-18T05:58:00.001+03:00

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s75FlysUwR3SE8vebp4v%2f7u6K3uM965qKwD9Skrraqpv3HiZUQyU%2bivrg94ShQaDyiYi6DaX3y1seC445QMyvQCeXwuOZia9PbnOMtyFhUt2I%3d
Abu Zaid: UNRWA deficit surpassed $30m

AMMAN, (PIC)-- The general commissioner of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Karen Abu Zayd has urged donors to expedite sending financial assistance to her agency, which is currently suffering more than 30 million dollars deficit.

She told a press conference held on the periphery of the Davos conference in Jordan on Saturday that the international financial crisis had negatively affected UNRWA and increased its budget deficit.

The commissioner said that the level of UNRWA services had retreated along with the ability to improve the staff's salaries and living conditions.

Israel's refusal to open crossings before construction material was impeding the reconstruction of Gaza Strip, Abu Zayd said, adding that no progress was made in this regard with the exception of minor maintenance of a number of schools.

She said that her agency asks Israel to open those crossings on daily basis to allow entry of construction material to rebuild what was destroyed but no positive response was received so far.

De facto Interior Ministry: Patients will not travel Sunday

2009-05-16T21:50:00.000+03:00

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=37869
De facto Interior Ministry: Patients will not travel Sunday

Gaza – Ma'an – The De facto Ministry of the Interior in Gaza said on Saturday that there will be no travel for patients on Sunday.

However, the Gaza Strip government noted that "efforts are ongoing in an attempt to open the Rafah crossing for a third day so more of them can leave."

Three busloads of patients managed to pass through the Rafah crossing into Egypt on Saturday, one hour after it was opened by Egyptian authorities. A total of 150 residents were transferred out of the besieged coastal strip.

Other passengers on the busses that carried about 50 passengers each were students and other stranded Palestinians with alternative residency permits.

The ministry had previously divided the passengers into three categories and gave each one a number for the busses that were waiting in Khan Younis, where it was expected that eight buses were to leave during the first day of opening. Some 2,500 Palestinians were attempting to leave Gaza on Saturday.

According to the ministry, officials "carried out many procedures aimed at facilitating the entry of residents, taking care not to overcrowd [Rafah] by registering passengers onling through the ministry's website."

Settlers claim ownership of two Palestinian homes

2009-05-16T21:40:00.001+03:00

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&Do=&ID=37867

Settlers claim ownership of two Palestinian homes

Jerusalem – Ma'an – Two Palestinians are scheduled to appear before an Israeli court on Sunday for refusing to evacuate homes that settlers are claiming to own.

The two Palestinians, Abed Al-Fatah Al-Ghawi and Maher Hanun, were ordered to appear in court after they refused to willingly evacuate their homes in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem.

One of the two residents, Maher Hanun, had previously spent three months in an Israeli prison for refusing to evacuate his home, which he insists he never sold to settlers.

The Israeli court disagrees, and has ruled that the homes must be evacuated.

Pope's visit overlooks Palestinians

2009-05-16T11:44:00.001+03:00

http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8
Pope's visit overlooks Palestinians
Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 14 May 2009

Pope Benedict XVI greets worshippers as he arrives at the Nativity Church in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, 13 May. (Mustafa Abu Dayeh/MaanImages)

Pope Benedict XVI upset the schedule on his first day in Israel by leaving an interfaith meeting in Jerusalem early on Monday night after a leading Muslim cleric called on him to condemn the "slaughter" of women and children in the recent assault on Gaza.

The pontiff walked out, a spokesman noted, because Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi's speech was a "direct negation" of dialogue and damaged the Pope's efforts at "promoting peace."

Before he arrived in the region, the Pope declared that he was coming as a "pilgrim of peace," with his staff accentuating that his role would be spiritual rather than political.

In truth, however, Pope Benedict's visit was mired in politics the moment he agreed, at the invitation of Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, to step into this conflict-torn region.

The two popes who preceded him to the Holy Land appear to have better appreciated that point.

The first, Paul VI, made a hurried 12-hour stop in 1964, before the Vatican and Israel had established diplomatic relations, to conduct a Mass in Nazareth. During that time he did not utter the word "Israel" or formally meet with an Israeli official.

The second, John Paul II, came to the Holy Land in radically different circumstances: for the millennium, when hopes were still bright for the peace process. The Vatican had recognized Israel a few years earlier and the pontiff worked hard to soothe long-standing Jewish grievances against the Catholic church.

But he is also remembered by Palestinians for his bold move in joining Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, on a visit to the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, where he cited UN resolutions against Israel and graphically described the "degrading conditions" under which Palestinians lived.

A decade on, the degrading conditions of occupation have worsened considerably and hopes of peace have vanished. In the circumstances, some Palestinians question what point a papal visit has served.

"The very act of coming here is a political act that works to the benefit of Israel," observed Mazin Qumsiyeh, a prominent peace activist who teaches at the West Bank's only Catholic university, in Bethlehem.

"This Pope's visit, unlike his predecessor's, offers no novelty -- apart from his decision to stand next to [the Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and legitimize an extreme right-wing government."

Israeli officials too are unpersuaded by the Pope's claim that he can avoid being dragged into local politics. Or as one government adviser told the Haaretz newspaper: "We have become pariahs in so many places around the globe. Promoting the Pope's visit to the state is part of changing that."

Israel has established the largest press centre in the country's history for this visit, while police have broken up attempts by Palestinian organizations in Jerusalem to present a rival picture to journalists.

The attempts at careful stage management began from the moment the Pope's plane touched down in Tel Aviv on Monday. At the reception, Pope Benedict stood between Netanyahu and Peres to listen not only to the Israeli national anthem but also to Jerusalem of Gold, a song popularized by soldiers during the capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war.

The lyrics -- offensive to Palestinians -- describe an empty and neglected city before the arrival of Jews.

Similarly, Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat, made a point of welcoming him to the "capital of Israel and the Jewish people," a description of Jerusalem not recognized in international law.

After the Pope failed to object, the Israeli media happily concluded that the country's occupation of Jerusalem had papal blessing.

In addition, Palestinians, including the 100,000 with ties to Rome, have been angered by the Pope's official meeting with the parents of a captured Israeli soldier, a humanitarian gesture made political for them by the fact that he has not extended the same courtesy to the parents of any of the thousands of Palestinians in Israeli captivity.

Many Palestinians appreciate that the Pope -- with his unfortunate, if apparently involuntary, connections to Nazi Germany -- has been especially careful not to offend Israeli sensitivities, even if his speech at Yad Vashem failed to live up to the country's high expectations.

But some also conclude that he has done too little to let the world know of their own plight.

Under pressure from Israel he has refused to visit Gaza, even at the beseeching of the tiny and besieged community of Catholics there.

Yesterday, to minimize Israel's embarrassment, Vatican officials tried as best they could to keep him out of view of the oppressive wall that encircles Bethlehem. But he did speak to the press outside a UN school at a refugee camp within meters of the wall.

And today, as he headed to Nazareth to celebrate mass, he will not meet Mazin Ghanaim, mayor of the Galilee town of Sakhnin, after Israel labelled Ghanaim a "supporter of terror" for criticizing its offensive in Gaza.

In private at least, some Palestinian Christian leaders admit that there are pressures on the Pope other than his own personal history that may make him wary of antagonizing Israel.

Most importantly, the Vatican desperately needs exemption from Israeli taxes levied on the Church's extensive land holdings. Unpaid property taxes are reported to amount to $70 million.

The Holy See also wants a reprieve from Israeli policies that deny visas to many church officials and block clerics' movement in the occupied territories.

As the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, recently complained: "At the roadblocks, even priestly garb doesn't help."

And finally, the Vatican has been seeking Israel's agreement for more than a decade to return to its control major sites of pilgrimage, including Mount Tabor and the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

But Israel has not been able to control the message completely. On his one-day trip to Bethlehem and the Aida refugee camp yesterday, the Pope did acknowledge Palestinian suffering and the destruction of Gaza, even if he blamed it vaguely on "the turmoil that has afflicted this land for decades."

He lamented the difficulties Palestinians face in reaching their holy places in Jerusalem, though he appeared to justify the restrictions on Israel's "serious security concerns."

And he criticized the building of a wall around Bethlehem, while attributing its construction to the "stalemate" in relations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

EU obligated to prosecute war crime s...

2009-05-16T11:03:00.000+03:00

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10525.shtml

EU obligated to prosecute war crime suspects

Daniel Machover and Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 14 May 2009

EU Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering talks with Palestinians during his visit to the Gaza Strip one month after the end of the Israeli assault. (Wissam Nassar/)

Over the past year, the European Union and Israel have deepened their relationship. The enhanced partnership that provides for closer political and mutually beneficial trade and investment relations as well as economic, social, financial, civil scientific, technological and cultural cooperation. The EU will pump 14 million euros ($18 million) of taxpayer money into the cooperation over the next seven years. However, talks to upgrade the current association agreement were suspended in January 2009 because of Israel's 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip. On 23 April, EU commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement that "the EU deeply deplores the loss of life during this conflict, particularly the civilian casualties, and would follow closely investigations into alleged violations of international humanitarian law." Ferrero-Waldner chastised Israel's refusal to endorse a Palestinian state. Israel quickly responded, warning the EU to tone down its criticism.

In the midst of the Gaza invasion, numerous experts pointed out that Israel was committing severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law. The Hague regulations and Geneva conventions specifically mention the illegality of collective punishment, targeting civilians during wartime and rules on military necessity and proportionality. Israel did not allow journalists and international monitors to enter Gaza during the invasion, and these opinions were based on limited eyewitness and media reports. In order to come to a full understanding of the operations and assess the harm done, human rights organizations, UN bodies and the Arab League have undertaken fact-finding missions and investigations. As the conclusions from these various investigations are released, it is now apparent that Israel does indeed have a case to answer to on many alleged war crimes.

As High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, EU countries are obligated to bring the legal duties of the Fourth Geneva Convention into their law. The basic starting point is enacting any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing or ordering any of the grave breaches of the convention (i.e., war crimes). The following grave breaches mentioned in the convention seem relevant to the assault on Gaza:

"[W]illful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention."

EU countries also have the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed or to have ordered such grave breaches, and must bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts (or extradite them to another country that is prepared to prosecute).

The authoritative commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention, published by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), states that:

"As soon as a contracting party realizes that there is on its territory a person who has committed ... a [grave] breach, its duty is to ensure that the person concerned is arrested and prosecuted with all speed. The necessary police action should be taken spontaneously, therefore, not merely in pursuance of a request from another State."

The ICRC commentary confirms that EU countries have an obligation to actively search for suspected war criminals. It follows that this duty should include maintaining border controls that enable a state to ensure that known suspects seeking to enter the jurisdiction are arrested on arrival. Many studies by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Redress Trust, have looked at the compliance of states with their legislative obligations under the Geneva conventions and these reveal some shocking failures by major EU countries. Austria, France, Greece and Italy have simply done nothing to make it possible for suspected war criminals to be prosecuted in their countries under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Meanwhile, full compliance with the principle of universal jurisdiction has not been achieved in several countries and in Malta and Latvia the situation is not fully clear and requires further research. For example, in Belgium the requirements to exercise universal jurisdiction do not comply with the Geneva conventions, because they contain a series of complex rules regarding the status of the suspect and the victim, none of which are permitted in the conventions.

The mere presence of a suspected war criminal of whatever nationality on the territory of a state should be enough to trigger universal criminal jurisdiction, regardless of the nationality or current whereabouts of the victim. Moreover, with the EU's obsession about the safety of borders and preventing undesirable people from entering the free market area, one would have thought that the member states would coordinate to ensure European countries never become safe havens for suspected war criminals.

Palestinian victims of alleged war crimes, just like other victims of war crimes, seek justice and the fair application of the rule of international criminal law to their cases. On 4 May, Judge Fernando Andreu of the Spanish National Court announced the decision to continue the investigation into the July 2002 bombing of al-Daraj, Gaza. This attack resulted in the deaths of 16 Palestinians, including 14 civilians. The decision represents a major step towards achieving justice for the victims. It opens the door for accountability, whereby suspected Israeli war criminals may be held responsible for the suffering they have inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza.

Fair criminal trials in EU member states, especially if they result in convictions, could provide genuine deterrence and begin to provide justice for Palestinian victims of Israeli actions. The EU has a massive role in that regard. Instead of paying lip service to injustices inflicted upon the Palestinian people by issuing statements "deploring the loss of life" and promises to "follow closely investigations into alleged violations of international humanitarian law," EU countries would achieve much more by applying the rule of law to Israel, starting with making their laws match their obligations under the 1949 Geneva Conventions. After all, 60 years later there is little sign that the need for war crimes trials has reduced.

Daniel Machover is an attorney and co-founder of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights based in Great Britain, and Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.

Pope’s visit to Aida refugee camp sows 'hope for the future"

2009-05-16T10:28:00.001+03:00

http://www.un.org/unrwa/news/releases/pr-2009/jer_14may09.html

Pope's visit to Aida refugee camp sows "hope for the future"

East Jerusalem, 14 May 2009

UNRWA was honoured to welcome Pope Benedict XVI to Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem where thousands had gathered to hear the Holy See deliver a message of hope and solidarity to the Palestine refugees.

The Papal visit coincided with two significant anniversaries. On May 15th Palestinians mark 61 years of exile and continuing dispossession with Al Nakba day. In the address Pope Benedict noted that, the Palestine refugees' "legitimate aspirations for permanent homes, for an independent Palestinian State, remain unfulfilled."

May 15^th is also the day that UNRWA launches "UNRWA at 60" a series of events that will commemorate the Agency's 60th anniversary. In his speech Pope Benedict called for all stakeholders to work for peace and non-violence and urged Palestinians, Israelis and the international community to strive for a just and lasting solution to the conflict. UNRWA's six decades of work with Palestine refugees makes it a vital agent of peace and stability in the Middle East. Through programmes that attend to fundamental human development needs, the Agency has contributed to the stability of Palestine refugee communities and the communities that host them.

By far the largest of UNRWA's programmes is Education. UNRWA provides over half a million Palestine refugee children and youth with free education. Moreover, in all UNRWA schools a special human rights, tolerance and conflict resolution programme is taught in addition to the local curriculum. This programme was developed by UNRWA to ensure that refugee children know the rights to which they, and all individuals, are entitled. The programme also includes practical activities, such as drama workshops and the establishment of student parliaments, which mean students are able to put into practice what they have learnt about conflict resolution and democracy.

On the occasion of the Pope's visit to Aida camp, his pledge of EUR 50,000 to UNRWA was announced. This generous contribution will benefit Palestine refugees in Aida camp, and pays for three new classrooms at Aida Boys School. UNRWA welcomes this support for its educational programme. In his speech Pope Benedict noted that a commitment to education is an expression of "hope in the future". UNRWA shares this sentiment and, through the Agency's educational programme, is committed to providing Palestine refugees with the tools they need for ensuring a better future for themselves and their communities. Furthermore, UNRWA's Commissioner-General Karen Abu-Zayd also expressed the hope that, 'we trust that your message will resonate with those entrusted with the privilege of political authority and encourage them to work together to achieve a just and lasting peace.'

UN agency to mark 60 years of assisting Palestinian refugees

2009-05-16T10:20:00.001+03:00

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30804&Cr=UNRWA&Cr1=

UN agency to mark 60 years of assisting Palestinian refugees

14 May 2009 – The United
Nations agency tasked with providing education, health, relief and social
services to 4.6 million Palestinian refugees is set to kick off a series of
events on Friday to commemorate its 60th anniversary.

In the first of many worldwide events, the UN Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East (release 60 blue balloons over Ramallah
as a symbol of hope rising over obstacles and uniting those who have been
separated and scattered, the agency said in a news release.

Each balloon will have the wishes of Palestinian refugee children attached on
tags, which are numbered with the purpose of tracking the balloons and marking
their destinations on a map on the agency’s website.

The agency, established by the General Assembly in the wake of the 1948
Arab-Israeli conflict, stressed that the commemoration is an occasion for sober
reflection on six decades of exile during which UNRWA has worked alongside the
refugees in times of relative calm in the Middle East, as well as strife.

The “UNRWA at 60” launch event will be hosted by Commissioner-General Karen
AbuZayd at the Ramallah Women’s Training Centre and attended by senior
Palestinian government officials, members of the diplomatic corps, senior
representatives of the Palestine refugee community, and members of local and
international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI visited
an UNRWA camp near Bethlehem yesterday, during which he announced a pledge of
50,000 Euros, which will allow for the building of three new classrooms at a
boys’ school. The Pope stressed that a commitment to education is an expression
of “hope in the future.”

Ms. AbuZayd said she hoped the Pope’s message “will resonate with those
entrusted with the privilege of political authority and encourage them to work
together to achieve a just and lasting peace.”

Studies center: Detaining mothers of freedom fighters cowardly ac

2009-05-14T11:09:00.000+03:00

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7EX9By%2bRwvjpgg6OnZU0MbUm47NT09Sfa2qg9uocLJUe19l9%2bdbkBqiSik3fOiakCYPC350nu81xPA5TGfp4xLd7TlddwwoHOZWLeDO4azXw%3d

Studies center: Detaining mothers of freedom fighters cowardly act

QALQILIA, (PIC)-- Ahrar center for prisoners' studies and human rights has denounced the Israeli occupation forces' "cowardly and unethical act" of detaining the mother of a wanted Palestinian activist to pressure him into surrendering.

The center said in a statement that the abduction of the 52-year-old Adela Yassin, the mother of the wanted activist Mohammed Yassin, in Qalqilia city on Tuesday was prohibited by all international laws and norms.

Adela is a civilian who should not be kidnapped and retained in detention as hostage until her son gives himself up, the center elaborated.

Fuad Al-Khafsh, the director of the center, said that the IOF troops ever since their occupation of Palestinian lands had pursued such acts in a bid to pressure Palestinian strugglers.

He recalled that the IOF soldiers had kidnapped the parents of late Yehya Ayyash in addition to kidnapping the wives of Ibrahim Hamed and Jamal Abul Haija.

Khafsh asked human rights groups to expose the IOF human rights violations and to adopt a serious stand against such practices.

IOA issues new batch of demolition orders in O. Jerusalem

2009-05-14T11:04:00.000+03:00

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7QuoemPCalk85wgj4i2GhvpAv2PKk75UrTLx5j5SU3yG389jQ%2fECJsXg7dELRacn2Pp2ueeShiuh5%2bYqvHs84u8T9L%2fSKyBK6gSQRT1zWFJs%3d

IOA issues new batch of demolition orders in O. Jerusalem

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority on Tuesday issued demolition orders against 31 Palestinian apartments in a number of suburbs in occupied Jerusalem, local sources reported.

They said that the Jewish-controlled municipality of Jerusalem ordered the demolition of those apartments near Silwan suburb, south of the Aqsa Mosque, which provide shelter for more than 300 citizens.

In another development in the West Bank, Jewish settlers on Tuesday stormed the area where the evacuated Homesh settlement used to exist near Seelat Al-Dhaher village, south of Jenin.

Eyewitnesses said that the settlers insulted all Palestinians who happened to pass by their pitched tents, and added that the Israeli occupation forces protected the settlers.

Jewish settlers frequently storm the same area with the IOF escort, which is more often than not accompanied by assaults on Palestinian farmers and nearby groves inflicting injuries to civilians and material damage.

Over 19 million people in Horn of Africa

2009-05-14T10:11:00.001+03:00

Over 19 million people in Horn of Africa need humanitarian aid, say UN officials

WFP plans to help more than 9 million of some 12.5 million people in Ethiopia affected by drought

12 May 2009 – Senior United Nations officials today highlighted the need for significant resources to help over 19 million people in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia who require humanitarian aid due the effects of conflict and drought.

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told a news conference in Geneva that the situation in Ethiopia, which has faced several years of drought and more recently high food prices, could deteriorate over the next few months.

There were concerns that less than expected rainfall could lead to poor harvests and there would be an increased need for food aid and for pockets of therapeutic feeding where malnutrition was present.

Mr. Holmes, who is also UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, said that there was no consolidated appeal for Ethiopia but there was a joint humanitarian response plan agreed with the Government, which would expire in June of this year and would need to be renewed. Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) needed an additional $236 million to cover its operations in the country for the rest of the year.

Meanwhile, drought and a major conflict had led to a situation in which some 50 per cent of Somalia's population was being provided with food rations, Mark Bowden, Humanitarian Coordinator for the country, told reporters.

He said the current drought was one of the worst in the last decade, and the prognosis for the rains this year was worsening. Around 24 per cent of children in some parts of the country had global acute malnutrition, and it was necessary now to start general supplementary feeding for children.

With fighting erupting again in the capital, Mogadishu, there are renewed fears about displacement, he added. There are currently some 1.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and more people had left the city over the weekend.

Mr. Bowden noted that the response to the $900 million appeal for Somalia had been "disappointing," with only 35 per cent of it being met so far.

Aeneas Chuma, Resident Humanitarian Coordinator at the UN Office in Nairobi, said Kenya too was facing a complex humanitarian situation owing to drought and high food prices. An estimated 10 million people were currently affected by the food insecurity.

In addition, the country had also been affected by the global economic downturn as major sources of revenue such as tourism had declined by about 30 per cent, while remittances from families abroad had also declined by 40 per cent.

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http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84537

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http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84478

Uphill struggle boosting disaster risk reduction efforts in the Middle East

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Urgent need to set up more camps for Pakistan’s displaced, says U

Urgent need to set up more camps for Pakistan's displaced, says UN agency

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Displacement in Pakistan largest and fastest in years, says UN re

Displacement in Pakistan largest and fastest in years, says UN refugee agency

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Edinburgh film fest returns Israeli funding

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UN efforts focusing on plight of civilians in post-conflict Sri L

UN efforts focusing on plight of civilians in post-conflict Sri Lanka

Somalia: humanitarian needs on upswing due to drought, violence –

Somalia: humanitarian needs on upswing due to drought, violence – UN

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Four Palestinians wounded, one seriously, as settlers
attack Palestinians north of the W. Bank

Israeli military launches largest-ever military
exercise

France is ignoring EU rules on arms sales to Israel, new
study reports

Pakistan: UN agencies join forces to provide shelter to
conflict displaced