Tag: Jerash Refugee Camp

“. . . Israel can militarily defeat but not politically subdue Palestinians . . .” (Martin Shaw)

Harold KnightLeave a comment
nablus-destruction
September 6, 2006. Israeli military in Balata Refugee Camp, south-east of Nablus partially destroy ten shops in the marketplace on the main street of the camp city center. (Photo: International Solidarity Movement)

❶ Israeli forces demolish warehouses, butchery near Nablus
❷ Israeli forces detain family of 8, journalist, 14 others in West Bank raids
. . . ❷― (a) Report: Israel detained 554 people, including 130 children, in October
❸  Israeli settlers call to stop ‘noise pollution’ caused by Muslim call to prayer in Jerusalem

  • Background: “Palestine And Genocide: An International Historical Perspective Revisited.” Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal

❹ Asma has been a refugee for 36 years; now a fashion startup has offered a lifeline
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ ISRAELI  FORCES  DEMOLISH  WAREHOUSES,  BUTCHERY  NEAR  NABLUS
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA   
Nov.3, 2016
Israeli forces demolished early Thursday two storage warehouses and butchery in the town of Beita, south of Nablus, according to a local official.
___Beita mayor Wasef Mualla told WAFA that the warehouses and the butchery were located near the town’s vegetable market.     More . . .   

football-fan
Al-Amari Refugee Camp, Funeral of Muhammad Qattri, killed by Israeli forces during protest, Aug. 15, 2014. (Photo: Electronic Intifada)

❷ ISRAELI  FORCES  DETAIN  FAMILY  OF  8,  JOURNALIST,  14  OTHERS  IN  WEST  BANK  RAIDS  
Ma’an News Agency   
Nov. 3, 2016
Israeli forces detained at least 25 Palestinians, including two parents, their six sons, and a journalist, in overnight raids in the occupied West Bank between Wednesday and Thursday, Israeli and Palestinian sources told Ma’an.
___In the West Bank district of Ramallah, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said that Israeli forces detained eight members of the same family in the AL-AMARI  REFUGEE  CAMP, sparking clashes in which four Palestinians were injured according to witnesses.
___The family members were identified as Zuhdi Thib Abu Shusheh, his wife Jihad Abu Shusheh, and their six sons Mahran, Ihab, Muhammad, Fadi, Bahaa, and Thib.  More . . .  
. . . ❷― (A) REPORT:  ISRAEL  DETAINED  554  PEOPLE,  INCLUDING  130  CHILDREN,  IN  OCTOBER    
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA    
Nov. 2, 2016   Israel detained 554 Palestinians during the month of October, including 130 minors and 11 women, according to a joint report by rights and prisoners’ advocacy groups published Wednesday.     ___The Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, the Prisoner’s Society, al-Mezan for Human Rights and Addameer said in their joint monthly report on situation of detainees from the occupied Palestinian territories held in Israeli jails that almost half of the detainees were from Jerusalem.      More . . .   

❸ ISRAELI  SETTLERS  CALL  TO  STOP  ‘NOISE  POLLUTION’  CAUSED  BY  MUSLIM  CALL  TO  PRAYER  IN  JERUSALEM 
Ma’an News Agency  
Nov. 3, 2016
A number of Israeli settlers from illegal settlement of Pisgat Zeev protested in front of the house of Israeli Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barakat on Thursday morning over the ‘noise pollution’ caused by the Muslim call to prayer. . . .
___The call to prayer ―also known as the adhan ― broadcast five times a day from mosques or Islamic centers.
___A spokesperson for the Jerusalem municipality told Ma’an that Barkat, “in collaboration with the Jerusalem District police chief and local Muslim leadership, has developed a plan to protect the religious freedom of Muslim muezzin to announce the call to prayer, while ensuring reasonable quiet in Jerusalem’s residential areas.” [. . . .]
___Adnan al-Husseini, the Palestinian Authority (PA)-appointed governor of Jerusalem, told Ma’an that the call to prayer was one of the main Muslim religious rituals and an integral part of Jerusalem’s identity. He said that Israeli demands to lower the sound of the adhan was a threat which had been issued several times before in Jerusalem. More . . .

  • Shaw, Martin. “Palestine And Genocide: An International Historical Perspective Revisited.” Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal (Edinburgh University Press) 12.1 (2013): 1-7.    Full article.

[. . . .]     Considered as a case of decolonization, Zionism was also unusual. Despite their lack of an organic connection with the British Empire, Zionists aspired nonetheless to present themselves as its natural heirs. Britain had committed itself to a Jewish national home, but it was ambivalent about the Zionist bid to monopolise land, wealth and power in Palestine, and it prioritised its own interests as decolonisation loomed. Zionists were not unusual in having, in the end, to fight the empire that protected them (so did Algerian and Rhodesian colons), but they were unique in lacking traditional national leverage in the imperial nation. They would compensate for this by seeking the protection of the United Nations, and as pioneers of the ethnic lobby in US domestic politics.
___Among the reasons that Zionist critics have given for rejecting the genocide frame are the low civilian casualties among Palestinian Arabs as a result of direct Zionist violence against them in 1948. A death toll of around 5,000 is generally accepted, compared to 750,000 people removed, a relatively low ratio suggesting that killing was a spur and aid to expulsion rather than an end in itself. . .  cases like the Holocaust and Rwanda where violence escalates to all-out mass murder are the exception . . .  critics have pointed out that a substantial Palestinian population remained in Israel after 1948 and has continued up to the present day. This too is not so unusual: neither Bosnia nor Darfur has seen total population removal either.
___. . .  The lateness of Zionist colonization, its expansionary ambitiousness compared to the consolidating projects of other East European nationalisms, and its lack of organic imperial protection all made the removal of Palestinians higher-risk than many genocidal projects. Israel was dependent on the support of the UN and its great powers, and that was also a constraint. . .  Israel’s destruction of Palestinian society responded to a short window of opportunity offered by the 1948 war. Although Palestinians were weakly organized in that year, the Naqba and their ongoing persecutions under Israeli rule and later occupation eventually catalysed a strong national consciousness, in turn a key reference point for wider Arab nationalism and later Islamism. All this has ensured an ongoing struggle in which Palestinians can provoke but not overthrow Israeli power; Israel can militarily defeat but not politically subdue Palestinians.

❹ ASMA  HAS  BEEN  A  REFUGEE  FOR  36  YEARS;  NOW  A  FASHION  STARTUP  HAS  OFFERED  A  LIFELINE  
The Guardian
Oliver Balch
Nov. 3, 2016       Palestinian refugees in Jordan are one of the longest standing refugee populations. SEP Jordan has trained 500 to make embroidered products
___Born in a Jordanian refugee camp to Palestinian parents, Asma Aradeh is stateless. The 36-year-old mother of six is one of more than 30,000 Palestinian exiles living for decades in legal limbo in Jordan’s Jerash camp. But there is one silver lining to Aradeh’s story: she is no longer jobless.
___Three years ago, Aradeh became one of 40 women to join a fledgling social enterprise called SEP Jordan, which manufactures contemporary design products based on traditional Palestinian embroidery. She is now quality controller of the socially minded startup, which has trained around 500 women across the camp.       More . . .

“. . . the moon is trudging there downcast and weary as the UNRWA. . .” (Rashid Hussein)

Harold KnightLeave a comment

(Please take a moment to read the page “Purpose” above. Thank you.)

Morning lineup at UNRWA school in Gaza. (UN Photo-Shareef Sarhan. November 27, 2013.)
Morning lineup at UNRWA school in Gaza. (UN Photo-Shareef Sarhan. November 27, 2013.)

❶ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
UNRWA  STAFF  IN  GAZA  ANNOUNCE  STRIKE  ON  1ST  DAY OF  SCHOOL  YEAR
Aug. 24, 2015
GAZA CITY ―Around 225,000 Gazan schoolchildren were forced to return home on Monday after local staff at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza went on strike on the first day of the new school year.
____The strike comes amid a financial crisis in the agency that earlier threatened to delay the start of the school year.
[. . . .]
____The union met with UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl on Sunday and said the “atmosphere wasn’t positive.”
[. . . .]
____For Palestinian refugees, the start of the school year came as a relief after UNRWA warned for weeks that it would have to delay the school year if it was unable to cover a $101 million deficit.
____The UN agency was only able to announce on Wednesday that the year would go ahead as scheduled, after it secured just short of $80 million in contributions against its deficit.
More. . .
Related. . . UNRWA  COMMISSIONER  GENERAL  FREEZES  CONTROVERSIAL  ‘UNPAID  LEAVE’
Related. . . ‘WE  CAN’T  HAVE  ANOTHER  YEAR  LIKE  THIS’:  UNRWA  COMMISSIONER-GENERAL

❷ From: AL-MONITOR (PALESTINE PULSE)
AFTER  ISRAELI  SETTLERS  LEFT,  THESE  GAZANS  PLANTED  MORE  THAN  EGGPLANTS
Hana Salah
August 23, 2015
KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip — A vast agricultural area in southern Gaza was dubbed by the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture in 2007 as Muhararat, or liberated lands. This term designates the settlements that were vacated by Israel in August 2005 and turned into Palestinian properties after 38 years. Ever since, the Palestinian government has been using these lands for cultivation, housing projects and resorts.
____When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan in 2003, the withdrawal in 2005 was warmly welcomed in the Gaza Strip. Nineteen settlements and settlement outposts distributed in the south and north were evacuated, and checkpoints were abolished. . .
____In 2006, the Palestinian government announced the formation of the General Administration of National Muhararat, tasked with managing, protecting, investing and supervising the Muhararat while reaping profits from them.
More. . .
Hana Salah is a Palestinian financial journalist based in Gaza. She previously worked with Palestinian newspapers and Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency.

The supervisor of citrus and potato cultivation in Muhararat areas inspects a crop, Gaza Strip, Aug. 12, 2015. (photo by Hana Salah)
The supervisor of citrus and potato cultivation in Muhararat areas inspects a crop, Gaza Strip, Aug. 12, 2015. (Photo by Hana Salah)

❸ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL  BEGINS  CONSTRUCTION  ON  RUINS  OF  NEGEV  BEDOUIN  VILLAGE
August 23, 2015
BEERSHEBA ― Israeli excavators on Sunday morning began work on infrastructure for two Jewish-only settlements in the former Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev desert in southern Israel, locals said.
____Locals told Ma’an that excavators and bulldozers were building a new road under heavy protection of Israeli forces.
____In November 2013, the Israeli government approved a decision to demolish the unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran and passed plans to create two Jewish settlements, Hiran and Kassif, in the area.
More. . .

❹ From THE PALESTINIAN INFORMATION CENTER
HAMAS:  NO  JUSTIFICATION  FOR  THE  UNRWA’S  REDUCTION  OF  ITS  SERVICES
August 24, 2015
GAZA ―Hamas Department of Refugee Affairs Sunday called on the international community and UNRWA to continue offering aid to and protecting right of Palestinian refugees till their return to their homeland from which they were forcibly displaced in 1948.
____There is no justification for the reduction of UNRWA’s services provided to Palestinian refugees in its five fields of operations especially after its Commissioner-General declared UNRWA’s 2015 financial crisis is over, the statement said. . .
____The department also stressed its total rejection of reducing UNRWA’s health care services provided to Palestinian refugees.
[. . . .]
____The Department of Refugee Affairs also stressed the importance of using Palestinian Authority textbooks in UNRWA schools, as it helps save huge amounts of money and prevents any distortion to the Palestinian history and struggle.
More. . .

❺ Opinion/Analysis
From INSIGHT ON CONFLICT
BORN  &  BRED  WITHOUT  RIGHTS:  GAZA  STRIP  REFUGEES  IN  JORDAN
Dario Sabaghi
July 10 2015
2 million Palestinian refugees live in Jordan but they are not all afforded the same legal status. Dario Sabaghi explains how those originating from the Gaze Strip are not considered citizens leaving them in a very precarious position.
[. . . .]
____Jerash Camp, also known locally as Gaza camp, was established in 1968 for 11,500 Palestine refugees who fled from the Gaza strip, as consequence of 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It is located not far from the Roman stone ruins of Jerash. Currently, it hosts about 28,000 registered refugees, who live in an area of 0.75 square kilometres. If you want to understand its overcrowding, you have to take in consideration that Gaza Camp is almost twice as large as Vatican City populated by 845 inhabitants.
More. . .

“TENT  #50  (SONG  OF  A  REFUGEE),”  BY  RASHID  HUSSEIN
Tent #50, on the left, is my new world,
Shared with me by my memories:
Memories as verdant as the eyes of spring.
Memories like the eyes of a woman weeping,
And memories the color of milk and love!

Two doors has my tent, two doors like two wounds
One leads to the other tents, wrinkle-browed
Like clouds no longer able to weep;
And the second ― a rent in the ceiling, leading
To the skies,
Revealing the stars
Like refugees scattered,
And like them, naked.

Also the moon is trudging there
Downcast and weary as the UNRWA,
Yellow as if it were the UNRWA
Under a load of yellow cheese for the refugees.

Tent #50, on the left, that is my present.
But it is too cramped to contain a future!
And ― “Forget!” they say, but how can I?

Teach the night to forget to bring
Dreams showing me my village
And teach the wind to forget to carry to me
The aroma of apricots in my fields!
And teach the sky, too, to forget to rain.

Only then, I may forget my country.

From: Aruri, Naseer and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. ENEMY  OF  THE  SUN:  POETRY  OF  THE  PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE. Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.
Available from Amazon.
Rashid Hussein (1936-1977) was born in Musmus, Palestine. He published his first collection in 1957 and established himself as a major Palestinian poet and orator. He participated in founding the Land Movement in 1959. He left in 1966 and lived in Syria and Lebanon and later in New York City where he died in February, 1977. He was buried a week later in Musmus. His funeral was attended by thousands of Palestinians.
More. . .

Jerash Camp, also known locally as Gaza camp, was established in 1968 for 11,500 Palestine refugees who fled from the Gaza strip. Photo Dario Sabaghi.
Jerash Camp, also known locally as Gaza camp, was established in 1968 for 11,500 Palestine refugees who fled from the Gaza strip. Photo Dario Sabaghi.