Tag: Gaza UNCTAD

“. . . I have willed that my heart be planted as a tree . . .” (Mahmoud Darwish)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Israeli soldier throws a sound grenade during a scuffle with Palestinian demonstrators in the village of Ras Karkar
An Israeli soldier throws a sound grenade during a scuffle with Palestinian in the village of Ras Karkar, near RAMALLAH, August 31, 2018. (Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman)

NEWS   OF   THE   DAY. . .

ISRAELI  FORCES  SHOOT,  KILL  3  PALESTINIANS  IN  GAZA
Three Palestinians were killed and dozens others sustained injuries during the 25th Friday of “The Great March of Return“ protests alongside the eastern borders of the besieged Gaza Strip.   ___Hundreds of Palestinians had gathered, earlier Friday, alongside the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip to take part in protests under the slogan of “Resistance is our Choice.”   ___Spokesperson of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qidra, confirmed that three Palestinians were killed during protests.   More . . .
Related . . . ISRAELI  FORCES  SUPPRESS  PROTEST  IN  RAMALLAH-AREA  VILLAGE

EUROVISION  2019  TO  BE  HELD  IN  TEL  AVIV  INSTEAD  OF  JERUSALEM        The Eurovision song contest has chosen Tel Aviv to host next year’s competition, despite the Israeli government previously declaring the event would be held in Jerusalem.    ___Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had wanted the international music competition to be held in the holy city as part of the government’s campaign for global recognition of Jerusalem as its capital.    ___Israel won the contest last year with the beatboxing and chicken-dancing artist Netta Barzilai, earning it the right to host the 2019 edition.   More . . .

AZIZ  ABU  SARAH  WANTS  TO  BE  MAYOR  OF  JERUSALEM  AND  IS  SUING  ISRAEL  Calling  ‘bluff’  on  Israel’s  democracy
Jaclynn Ashly
A Palestinian in occupied East Jerusalem is breaking boundaries by suing the Israeli government in hopes of becoming the first Palestinian to run for mayor in Israel’s municipal elections in Jerusalem next month.    ___Aziz Abu Sarah, 38, announced his intention to run for mayor last week, as part of the Palestinian-run Al-Quds Lana (“Jerusalem is ours”) list, which is contending for seats at Jerusalem’s city hall in October.    ___Israeli law forbids Palestinians in East Jerusalem from running for the post of mayor because they are not considered Israeli citizens.    ___Therefore, Abu Sarah has decided to sue the Israeli government in Israel’s High Court over the law.   More . . .
Related . . .  JERUSALEM:  WHERE  THE  OCCUPIER  DEMANDS  LOYALTY  FROM  THE  OCCUPIED

COMMENTARY    AND    OPINION. . . .

THE  OSLO  ERA  IS  FINALLY  OVER,  BUT  IT  ONLY  GETS  WORSE  FROM  HERE
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man
There is something unsettling about the way the 25-year anniversary since the signing of the Oslo Accords is being marked — neither eulogy nor longing, and without anyone having any clue what lies ahead. There is one thing that is different this year, however. With the exception of Jason Greenblatt, nobody is paying lip service to the illusion of a peace process any more.   More . . .

UN:  GAZA  SITUATION  ‘CATASTROPHIC’  AMID  DEEPENING  AID  CUTS     The UN said on Wednesday that the situation in Gaza was “catastrophic” after 11 years of “economic siege” and warned that Washington’s decision to halt assistance to Palestinian refugees would create “more misery.”   ___Isabelle Durant, the deputy head of the United Nations development agency (UNCTAD), said:
___“The situation in Gaza is becoming less and less livable … It is catastrophic.”   More . . .

NOTICES  FROM  ORGANIZATIONS. . . .

KinderUSA  –  DR.  MADS  GILBERT:  A  RETURN  VISIT  TO  GAZA. Anaheim, CA; Plano, TX.     Dr. Gilbert has a broad range of experience from international humanitarian work, especially in locations where medical and political issues merge. Since the 1970s, he has been actively involved with solidarity work concerning Palestinians, and he has served as a doctor for several periods in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon for NORWAC. His efforts have been central to leading the city of Tromsø, since 2001 a twin town of Gaza.  Information . . .   Dr. Mads Gilbert Video . . .

POEM  FOR  THE  DAY. . .

“PRIDE  AND  FURY,”  BY  MAHMOUD  DARWISH

O homeland! O eagle,
Plunging, through the bars of my cell,
Your fiery beak in my eyes!
All I possess in the presence of death
Is pride and fury.
I have willed that my heart be planted as a tree,
That my forehead become an abode for skylarks.
O eagle,
I am unworthy of your lofty wing,
I prefer a crown of flame.
O homeland!
We were born and raised in your wound,
And ate the fruit of your trees,
To witness the birth of your daybreak.
O eagle unjustly languishing in chains,
O legendary death which once was sought,
Your fiery beak is still plunged in my eye,
Jails with their gates flung wide
Summon me,
And in all the airports of the world
Are found my names and titles –
The lying wind carries me,
Disperses me.
Palestinian –
The name pursues me, lives with me;
Palestinian is my fate,
Clinging to me, reviving me.
Palestinian I am,
Though they betray me and my cause;
Palestinian I am,
Though they sell me in the market
For what they please,
For thousands of millions;
Palestinian I am,
Though to the gallows they drive me;
Palestinian I am,
Though to the walls they bind me,
Palestinian I am,
Palestinian I am,
Though to the flames they cast me.
I – what am I?
Without my name, Palestinian,
Without a homeland to live for,
To protect and be protected by?
I – what am I?
Answer me, answer me.

–From AN  ANTHOLOGY  OF  MODERN  ARABIC  POETRY. Translated by Mounah A. Khouri and Hamid Algar. University of California Press, 1974.

 

“. . . Tank shells and small-arms fire and their hatred, all these roll . . .” (Uthman Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
IMG_3567
The Sea of Galilee near the Church of the Multiplication (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 9, 2015)

❶ UN appeals for funding to address ‘spiraling’ humanitarian crisis in Gaza
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Cancer patient dies in Gaza after being denied treatment abroad
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) Egypt supplying fuel to rescue Palestinians

Background: “Countdown to the Next Chernobyl–Gaza.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

❷ Israeli court finds right-wing extremist guilty in 2015 church arson
❸ A memorial service for a dead settler from Hebron at Al-Aqsa Mosque
❹ POETRY by Uthman Hussein
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ UN  APPEALS  FOR  FUNDING  TO  ADDRESS  ‘SPIRALING’  HUMANITARIAN  CRISIS  IN  GAZA 
Ma’an News Agency
July 3, 2017.   United Nations humanitarian organizations in the occupied Palestinian territory appealed on Monday for funding to address the “spiraling” situation in the besieged Gaza Strip.
___According to a statement published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the agencies requested some $25 million in funding during a meeting with diplomats in Jerusalem.
___The additional funding would seek to “mitigate the effects of deep power cuts and lack of fuel” that have severely affected Gaza’s infrastructure — such as water treatment plants and sewage systems — and its health sector, the statement said
___The funding would also help assist some 100,000 food-insecure families, the OCHA statement added.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) CANCER  PATIENT  DIES  IN  GAZA  AFTER  BEING  DENIED  TREATMENT  ABROAD    
Al Hourriah Magazine (Freedom) 
July 4, 2017.  The Gaza Ministry of Health announced on Monday the death of a citizen suffering from cancer due to Israel’s procrastination in allowing him to receive treatment outside the Gaza Strip.
___Spokesman of the Ministry Ashraf al-Qedra said that the Israeli authorities have been procrastinating for 20 days in transferring Jameel Tafesh, 60, who was suffering from liver cancer, to a hospital in the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❶ ― (ᴃ) EGYPT  SUPPLYING  FUEL  TO  RESCUE  PALESTINIANS 
Al-Monitor (Palestine Pulse)   
Mohammed Othman
July 3, 2017.  The diesel fuel Egypt has supplied to the Gaza Strip is but a drop in the bucket toward easing Gaza’s power crisis, but there is hope the gesture might signal a thaw in Egypt’s relations with the Hamas-run Gaza government and possibly open the flow of trade.
___Egyptian authorities opened the Rafah border crossing to the Gaza Strip June 21-24 to allow in Egyptian industrial diesel for Gaza’s sole power plant, which has been offline more than two months. Since then, the plant has received intermittent deliveries of Egyptian diesel fuel through the Rafah crossing.   MORE . . .  

Abood, Jeffery. “COUNTDOWN  TO  THE  NEXT  CHERNOBYL –GAZA.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, vol. 35, no. 5, Aug/Sep2016, pp. 1-5.
Gaza is home to 1.9 million people, over a million of whom are children. According to the CIA Factbook, only 19 other territories (out of 229) have a younger median age. Last year, a United Nations report warned that the Gaza Strip, the place these children call home, “could become uninhabitable by 2020, if current economic trends persist.” By the time we are inundated with the next round of presidential election ads, Gaza could very well have become uninhabitable, unable to support human life–thus joining the list of other uninhabitable areas of the world, including the Arctic, Death Valley and Chernobyl.
___Why will one of the most densely populated areas on earth soon to be designated, like the city of Chernobyl, as unable to sustain life? It will not be due to some nuclear accident or natural disaster. It will, instead, be uniquely by design.
___According to a June 2016 U.N. report, “Fragmented Lives,” “the major drivers of humanitarian vulnerability in the oPt were directly linked to Israel’s protracted occupation.” In 2015, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) warned that “short of ending the blockade [we cannot] reverse the ongoing de-development and impoverishment in Gaza.” According to UNCTAD, this “de-development” is a process by which development is not merely hindered but reversed. A state of “de-development” requires control of all the aspects that contribute to a normal life. Keeping a population captive, while never allowing their situation to improve, denies them the ability to live, grow and thrive.    FULL ARTICLE . . .

❷ ISRAELI  COURT  FINDS  RIGHT-WING  EXTREMIST  GUILTY  IN  2015  CHURCH  ARSON 
Ma’an News Agency
July 3, 2017.  A far-right Israeli extremist was found guilty on Monday in a 2015 arson attack targeting the famous Church of Multiplication in northern Israel, Israeli media reported.
___According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, 22-year-old Yinon Reuveni was found guilty of all charges after torching the church, believed to be the site where Jesus Christ performed the miracle of multiplying fishes and loaves of bread, in June 2015.
___The church only reopened in February of this year after undergoing extensive repairs following the fire.
___Reuveni had also been charged in 2016 for committing acts of violence against Palestinians, Ynet noted, whereas Haaretz quoted Shin Bet sources as claiming that Reuveni had been involved in other arson attacks against mosques.   MORE . . .

IMG_3575
Church of the Multiplication. Damage from firebomb thrown by right-wing Israeli terrorist Yinon Reuveni (Photo: Harold Knight, Nov. 9, 2015)

❸ A  MEMORIAL  SERVICE  FOR  A  DEAD  SETTLER  FROM  HEBRON  AT  AL-AQSA  MOSQUE
Wadi Hilweh Information Center – Silwan
June 29, 2017.
Dozens of settlers broke into Al-Aqsa Mosque on Thursday morning as a group of them conducted a memorial service on the first anniversary of the death of Halil Yafa; a settler from Kiryat Arba’ settlement in Hebron.
___The Islamic Awqaf department said that 123 settlers broke into Al-Aqsa Mosque on Thursday morning through Dung Gate which is controlled by the occupation authorities since the occupation of the city of Jerusalem. Settlers carried out a tour inside the courtyards of Al-Aqsa while one group 970 settlers) including the mother of Halil Yafa (member of the Alleged Temple groups) and the Chief of Police in Jerusalem as well as senior police officers and Special Forces personnel conducted a memorial service for Halil.   MORE . . .

“CAMP  BLOCK  5,”  BY  UTHMAN  HUSSEIN

I have to go, I said: I have to. The barbarians are besieging time and place, besieging this rapid breathing in the side-alleys of frustration’s long journey. Explosions ripple, fear controls the situation. Justified and upstanding fear in the face of history at a great crossroads. They monitor us and we monitor them and we besiege their glory with our weakness. Tank shells and small-arms fire and their hatred, all these roll before the demolition machines.
I will go now. Many children, half asleep and stumbling and falling as you hurry them from their houses at the hour of dawn. Houses that will be leveled like accusations in just a moment. A father carries his children and rushes like a missile out of what will shortly be a pile of cement, oh if he didn’t draw back from you a moment, he would still be Ahmed al-Munsi under the pile which his house became, as if I had an appointment with justified forgetting as well. The hour of dawn passes and shells pound the dilapidated house and the demolition machine bears down on the overwhelmed blocks of the camp in their misery. . . .     COMPLETE POEM . . .

Uthman Hussein is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Palestinian cultural magazine Ashtar. He lives in Rafah in Gaza.
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY. Ed. by Henry Bell and Sarah Irving. (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014) –available from Barnes & Noble.

Further reading about the situation in Gaza:
Bouris, Dimitris. “The Vicious Cycle Of Building And Destroying: The 2014 War On Gaza.” Mediterranean Politics 20.1 (2015): 111-117.       SOURCE . . .
Hartley, Delinda C. “What Looms Ahead for the Forgotten Heroes of Gaza?.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, vol. 34, no. 3, May 2015, pp. 16-74.
FULL ARTICLE . . .
Macintyre, Donald. “Life among the Ruins. (Cover Story).” New Statesman, vol. 143, no. 5221, 08 Aug. 2014, pp. 22-27.     FULL ARTICLE . . .

 

 

“. . . Who has spoken out against death at every corner. . .” (Fouzi El-Asmar)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
Shepherd in Salem village near Nablus, occupied West Bank, 10 October 2014. Photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz ActiveStills
Shepherd in Salem village near Nablus, occupied West Bank, 10 October 2014. Photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz ActiveStills

❺ Opinion/Analysis
+972 MAGAZINE
IN  NABI  SALEH,  AN  OCCUPIER’S  SENSE  OF  ENTITLEMENT
September 2, 2015
Reactions in Israel to the attempted arrest of a minor in Nabi Saleh have been fierce yet predictable. Wrapped up in outraged reactions to the treatment of the soldier himself, however, is Israel’s bruised sense of entitlement.
An Israeli soldier’s attempted arrest of a Palestinian minor in Nabi Saleh last Friday, and its prevention by the child’s family, have generated heated reactions in Israel. Responses have ranged from outrage at the soldier’s treatment to calls for increased and harsher powers for Israeli security forces . . . Only in a few isolated corners did the question arise of whether it is reasonable or decent for an armed soldier to chase and pin down an injured child. . . .
____ . . . Much was made of the fact that this was not the first time the Tamimi family has been in the news . . . . There seems to have been little consideration of the fact that what is caught on camera simply gives the barest hint as to what goes on behind closed doors, or that the video camera might be a legitimate non-violent weapon in the struggle against military occupation.
More. . .
Related. . . 

❶ ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER (AIC)
ISRAEL  UPS  JERUSALEM  REPRESSION
September 2, 2015
Israel has created the new position of “security coordinator” for Jerusalem’s Old City area, increasing repression of Palestinian residents in occupied East Jerusalem.
____The Jerusalem municipality established the new position of security coordinator for the occupied East Jerusalem Old City area, which includes the Old City itself and the surrounding Israeli settlements. Creation of this position is the initiative of municipal council member Arieh King, a right-wing activist for the Judaisation of Jerusalem and himself a settler residing in East Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives.
____King, who holds the emergency and security file for Jerusalem’s municipal council, told the settler-affiliated news portal Arutz 7 that “the ultimate goal is to transform the Old City and its surroundings into a safer area.”
More. . .
Related. . .
Related. . .

Increasing repression of Palestinian resistance in Jerusalem's Old City area. Photo Sergio Yahini, AIC
Increasing repression of Palestinian resistance in Jerusalem’s Old City area. Photo Sergio Yahini, AIC

❷ INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
WOMAN  INJURED,  EIGHT  SHEPHERDS  KIDNAPPED  NEAR  NABLUS
September 02, 2015
Shepherd Injured, Eight Sheep Killed After Being Rammed With a Settler’s Car Near Hebron
____Israeli soldiers attacked and injured, Wednesday, an elderly Palestinian woman, and kidnapped eight shepherds and farmers, in Salem village, east of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
____Medical sources in Nablus said an elderly woman, identified as Mahfoutha Eshteyya, 75 years of age, attempted to defend her son as Israeli soldiers were trying to kidnap him, when they violently assaulted her. . . The woman . . . was moved to a local hospital in Nablus.
____The soldiers also attacked and kidnapped eight Palestinian shepherds in the area, and took them to a number of detention and interrogation centers
More. . .

❸ INTERNATIONAL MIDDLE EAST MEDIA CENTER (IMEMC)
DETAINEE  DEVELOPS  PSYCHOLOGICAL,  NEUROLOGICAL  ISSUES  DUE  TO  8  YEARS  IN  SOLITARY  CONFINEMENT
September 2, 2015
The Palestinian Detainees Committee has reported, Wednesday, that political prisoner Mohammad Jobran Khalil, 33, is suffering various psychological and neurological issues, resulting from being held in solitary confinement for the eight consecutive year.
____The Committee said that Jubran, from the central West Bank city of Ramallah, has also been denied family visits for the ninth consecutive month.
More. . .

❹ PALESTINE CHRONICLE
UN:  GAZA  COULD  BE  ‘UNINHABITABLE’  BY  2020
September 1, 2015
The Gaza Strip, ravaged by wars and nearly a decade of a grueling Israeli blockade, could become uninhabitable for residents within just five years, the United Nations development agency said Tuesday.
____“The social, health and security-related ramifications of the high population density and overcrowding are among the factors that may render Gaza unlivable by 2020,” the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) wrote in its annual report.
____Gaza, a tiny enclave of just 362 square kilometers (about 225 square miles) squeezed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea that is home to some 1.8 million Palestinians, counts one of the highest population densities in the world.
More. . .

“BECAUSE  I  AM  AN  ARAB,”  BY  FOUZI  EL-ASMAR
I sit in preventive detention.
The reason, see, is that I am an Arab.
An Arab who has refused to sell his soul
who has always striven, sir, for freedom.
An Arab who has protested at the suffering
of his people
Who has carried with him the hope
of a just peace
Who has spoken out against death
at every corner
Who has called for and has lived
a life of brotherhood.
That is why I sit in preventive detention
Because I carried on the struggle
And because I am an Arab.

El-Asmar, Fouzi. THE  WIND-DRIVEN  REED  AND  OTHER  POEMS. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1979.
Available from Amazon.
About Fouzi El-Asmar

Palestinian Manal Keferna, 30, cries as she holds dead chicks upon her return to the family house destroyed by Israeli strikes in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, Saturday, July 26, 2014. AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Palestinian Manal Keferna, 30, cries as she holds dead chicks upon her return to the family house destroyed by Israeli strikes in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, Saturday, July 26, 2014. AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis.