RAMALLAH – The inevitable has happened. Simmering tensions between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have left six Palestinians dead, in the bloodiest confrontation between the two groups since Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza in June 2007. A bloody gun battle broke out Sunday morning in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilia between a …
Continue reading “Bloody New Battles Suit Israel”
Stephen Zunes on legal lightweights for the Lobby
GAZA CITY – The lives of hundreds of critically ill Gazans continue to be jeopardized by the power struggle between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah and political blackmail by Israel. Mohammed Zibdeh, 12, who has cancer of the brain, is waiting in Gaza City for a permit to travel to Israel for advanced treatment. …
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RAFAH, Palestine – Jihad el-Shaar is pleased with his mud-brick house in the Moraj district of Gaza. The 80-square meter home is a basic one-story, two-bedroom design, with a small kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, made mostly with mud and straw. "My wife and our four daughters and I were living with family, but it …
Continue reading “Palestinians Rebuild With Mud”
UNITED NATIONS – A detailed 184-page report critical of Israeli attacks on UN personnel and buildings during the Gaza conflict last December-January has been meticulously stripped down to a 27-page document – mostly due to political sensitivities and on security grounds. Responding to charges he had released only a "watered-down" version of the report by …
Continue reading “UN Inquiry Critical of Israeli Attacks in Gaza”
Mohammed al-Sheikh Yousef could save his eyesight if only he could cross the border out of Gaza. He was denied a permit by Israel; he got one from Egypt, but not for someone to accompany him. And he can’t go on his own, because he cannot see very well. "If Mohammed does not get out …
Continue reading “Gazans Desperate for Medical Care Denied”
TEL AVIV – Even though atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers have surfaced and the appointment of a right-wing government diminishes the chances for peace in the Middle East, no left-wing Israeli is taking to the streets. During the war in Gaza, modest peace manifestations brought together a few thousand protesters at a time. After the …
Continue reading “Silence on the Israeli Left”
JERUSALEM — The Israeli army’s Advocate General has summarily closed an internal investigation into allegations stemming from accounts by soldiers of abuses against Palestinian civilians committed during Israel’s recent war on Hamas in Gaza. It took the military investigators just half the duration of the 22-day war in Gaza to bulldoze the accounts and to …
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Ali Gharib says peace talks must include Hamas.
