The Impact of the Conflict
on Daily Life

Israeli video games in Gaza: “Minimal collateral damage”
Alison Weir, CounterPunch & Antiwar.com - He looks at the camera with bright eyes and the beginning of a smile, wearing a miniature dark blue zipper sweatshirt, the cuffs folded up a bit to make it fit. I can imagine his mother dressing him that morning, making sure he would be warm enough. I wonder if she’s the one who took the picture. Someone has written on the photo “kisses.” more

 Impressions of Israeli Executions in the West Bank 
Vijay Raghavan - Much planning had gone into our family vacation in Israel-Palestine. We could spare only the last two weeks of 2009, and so had developed an uncompromising itinerary for each day, allowing a mere half-day to recover from jet lag from our trip from California. After devoting most of the first week to visiting holy places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Jericho, we were, in the words of our 17-year-old, quite “churched out.” We are a typical American family in at least one regard: we have two other children (ages five and two), and we are all blessed with limited attention span. Absorbing detailed references to the Old and New Testaments in the places we visited was beyond our capabilities. Our hired tour guide and driver, Issa Habash, had long ago taken notice of our monumental ignorance and had given up on reciting chapter and verse from the Bible. more

 Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them  
Amiram Barkat, Haaretz - A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman in Israel attended a meeting at a government office in Jerusalem's Givat Shaul quarter. When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came and knocked on the window. When the clergyman let the window down, the passerby spat in his face. more

 Palestinian child pays price of Israel's siege 
Casey Kauffman, Al Jazeera - Firas Mazloom was born desperately ill in Gaza just as Israel started its siege on the impoverished Palestinian territory two years ago. Al Jazeera's Casey Kauffman reports on the race against time to save two-year-old Firas. WATCH

 Videos: Alison Weir on Organ Harvesting and Israel 
Divining the News - Three videos from an interview with Alison Weir discussing allegations of Israeli organ harvesting, the Israel lobby in the U.S., and her response to accusations of anti-Semitism. WATCH

 Israeli Organ Harvesting: The New "Blood Libel"? 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Last week Sweden’s largest daily newspaper published an article containing shocking material: testimony and circumstantial evidence indicating that Israelis may have been harvesting internal organs from Palestinian prisoners without consent for many years. more

Related Videos:

• Donald Bostrom Swedish Journalist on Israeli organ harvesting

• Donald Bostrom: Israeli Govt needs to read about democracy

• Brooklyn Rabbi Trafficking in Human Organs

• Alison Weir on Organ Harvesting and Israel

 UN probe in Gaza: Especially painful testimonies 
Ali Waked, YNet - Richard Goldstone and UN delegates hear testimonies of Gaza Strip residents as part of UN Human Rights Council's investigation of Operation Cast Lead. According to Goldstone, goal of hearing is to bring story of victims to world. more

 Inside Story - Collateral damage? 
Al Jazeera - Human rights watch group says Israeli spy srones killed Palestinian civilians during Gaza war. WATCH

 Precisely Wrong 
Human Rights Watch - During the recent fighting in Gaza from December 27, 2008, to January 18, 2009, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed dozens of Palestinian civilians with one of the most precise weapons in its arsenal: missiles launched from an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV)-the latter more commonly known as a drone. Alongside weapons that affect large areas, such as high explosive artillery and artillery-fired white phosphorous, Israeli forces in Gaza used drones in precisely targeted attacks that killed and wounded civilians. more

 Draft Israeli Bill Would Ban Commemoration of Nakba 
Tobias Buck, Financial Times - The draft bill would make it a criminal offence – punishable by up to three years in prison – for Israeli citizens to mark the “Nakba”. The term means catastrophe, and is used by Palestinians to describe the year of Israel’s foundation, when between 700,000 and 800,000 of them fled or were expelled by advancing Israeli troops. It is commemorated every year on May 15, and involves demonstrations and marches to destroyed Palestinian villages inside Israel. more

 The Death of Bassem Abu Rahme 
Frank Barat, Palestine Chronicle - As it usually happens, as soon as the march reached the corner where the Israeli soldiers can be seen, the tear gas started. A few brave ones continued anyway and reached the beginning of the wall, after a few minutes. Bassem, as usual, was one of those. The Israelis, present at the front of the demonstration started talking with the nearby soldiers in Hebrew and Bassem too, screamed “We are in a non violent protest, there are kids and internationals...”. He was shot in the chest and never managed to finish his sentence. He fell on the floor, moved a little bit, fell again, and died. more

 VIDEO: Nonviolent Protest in Bil'in on April 17, 2009; Bassem Abu Rahme is Killed 
Demonstration by village of Bil'in Friday April 17th 2009, Bassem Ibrahim abu-Rakhma ('Phil") mortally wounded. more

 Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009  
Uri Blau, Haaretz - The office at the Adiv fabric-printing shop in south Tel Aviv handles a constant stream of customers, many of them soldiers in uniform, who come to order custom clothing featuring their unit's insignia, usually accompanied by a slogan and drawing of their choosing. Elsewhere on the premises, the sketches are turned into plates used for imprinting the ordered items, mainly T-shirts and baseball caps, but also hoodies, fleece jackets and pants. A young Arab man from Jaffa supervises the workers who imprint the words and pictures, and afterward hands over the finished product. more

 As US arms shipment reaches Israel, President Obama urged to halt further exports 
Amnesty International - The new delivery to Israel of a massive consignment of US munitions, revealed by Amnesty International today, throws into question whether President Obama will act to prevent the US fuelling further Israeli attacks against civilians that may amount to war crimes, as were perpetrated in Gaza. more

 Israel on Trial 
George Bisharat, New York Times - Chilling testimony by Israeli soldiers substantiates charges that Israel’s Gaza Strip assault entailed grave violations of international law. The emergence of a predominantly right-wing, nationalist government in Israel suggests that there may be more violations to come. Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians also constituted war crimes, but do not excuse Israel’s transgressions. While Israel disputes some of the soldiers’ accounts, the evidence suggests that Israel committed the following six offenses: more

 Changing the rules of war 
George Bisharat, San Francisco Chronicle - The extent of Israel's brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him." more

 Consent and advise  
Yotam Feldman and Uri Blau , Haaretz - On the first day of Operation Cast Lead, the air force bombed the graduation ceremony of a police course, killing dozens of policemen. Months earlier, an operational and legal controversy was already swirling around the planned attack. According to a military source who was involved in the planning, bombing the site of the ceremony was authorized with no difficulty, but questions were raised about the intent to strike at the graduates of the course. Military Intelligence, convinced the attack was justified, pressed for its implementation. Representatives of the international law division (ILD) in the Military Advocate General's Office at first objected, fearing a possible violation of international law. more

 Israeli army rabbis criticized for stance on Gaza assault 
Richard Boudreaux , Los Angeles Times - The winter assault on the Gaza Strip was officially portrayed in Israel as an attempt to quell rocket fire by militants of Hamas. But some soldiers say they also were lectured about a more ambitious aim: to banish non-Jews from the biblical land of Israel. more

 IDF rabbinate publication during Gaza war: We will show no mercy on the cruel  
Amos Harel, Haaretz - During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, the religious media - and on two occasions, the Israel Defense Forces weekly journal Bamahane - were full of praise for the army rabbinate. The substantial role of religious officers and soldiers in the front-line units of the IDF was, for the first time, supported also by the significant presence of rabbis there. more

 'Shooting and crying' 
Amos Harel, Haaretz - Less than a month after the end of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, dozens of graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory program convened at Oranim Academic College in Kiryat Tivon. Since 1998 the program has prepared participants for what is considered meaningful military service. Many assume command positions in combat and other elite units of the Israel Defense Forces. The program's founder, Danny Zamir, still heads it today and also serves as deputy battalion commander in a reserve unit. more

 Israelis fashion T-shirts depicting Gaza killings 
Al Jazeera - The Israeli military has condemned as "unacceptable" t-shirts worn by soldiers depicting the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The shirts came into fashion following disclosures that soldiers who took part in Israel's military offensive in Gaza complained about rules of engagement allowing them to kill civilians and destroy property. WATCH

 Confirmed figures reveal the true extent of the destruction inflicted upon the Gaza Strip; Israel’s offensive resulted in 1,417 dead, including 926 civilians, 255 police officers, and 236 fighters 
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - The Israeli offensive launched on the Gaza Strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 resulted in extensive death, injury and destruction throughout the Gaza Strip. Only now is the true extent of the devastation becoming apparent. more

 Sderot Built on Ashes of Ethnically Cleansed and Defaced Najd 
Um Khalil Blog - We often hear about Palestinian rockets hitting the Israeli town of Sderot. What is often left out of these reports is that these rockets almost never kill or injure anyone, and only rarely cause damage. In addition, as this article describes, Sderot was built on the remains of a Palestinian town that had been ethnically cleansed by Israel’s founders in 1948. more

 3 Videos: Guardian investigation uncovers evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza 
Clancy Chassay and Julian Borger, The Guardian of London - The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields and the targeting of medics and hospitals. A month-long investigation also obtained evidence of civilians being hit by fire from unmanned drone aircraft said to be so accurate that their operators can tell the colour of the clothes worn by a target. WATCH and read more

 Monthly Summary of Israeli Violations: 01 January 2009 - 31 January 2009 
Palestinian Monitoring Group - During the month of January 2009, the Israeli army killed 785 Palestinians, including 5 in the West Bank and 780 in the Gaza Strip. The majority of Palestinians killed were in the Gaza Strip. As a result of attacks and air attacks waged during the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip districts, scores of children, women, and elderly civilians were killed. Corpses were also extricated from under the rubble of destroyed houses and buildings. Of those killed were 283 children; 101 female civilians; 92 elderly civilians; 12 medics; 16 civilians from the same family; and 4 journalists. more

 Hammad’s death barely made the news 
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - On the 14 of February 2009, almost a month after Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, thirteen year old Hammad Silmiya was grazing his sheep and goats in northeast Gaza, about 500 metres from the border with Israel. An Israeli military jeep patrolling the border opened fire on him and his teenage friends. Hammad was shot in the head and he died almost instantly. more

 Statement on Access 
Joe Donnelly, Permanent Delegate to the United Nations - ACCESS ACCESS ACCESS. One word which makes extraordinary difference for everyone's life in Gaza, as well as everyone outside Gaza seeking to provide normal, as well as heightened, emergency assistance to the 1.5 million Palestinian people surviving that extraordinarily densely populated sliver of land on the Mediterranean coast, adjacent to Israel at the Eretz border crossing. more

 A month on from Gaza ceasefire up to 100,000 people remain homeless 
Save The Children - At least 100,000 people, including up to 56,000 children, remain displaced with many continuing to take shelter in tents or crowding into remaining homes with other families, one month since the Gaza ceasefire was declared. more

 Understanding the Crisis in Gaza: Important Facts and Context about the Recent Violence 
If Americans Knew - Read or download this fact sheet containing historical context, specific facts about the recent crisis in Gaza, and important statistics. more

 Israel Violated Cease-fire 7 Times: US Media Misreport Latest Gaza Violence 
If Americans Knew - American media are reporting violence that took place along the Gaza-Israel border on January 27th as, in the words of CNN, "the first incidents of violence since last week's Mideast cease-fire," telling the public that Palestinians broke the ceasefire. The reality, however, is that Israel had already violated the cease-fire at least 7 times, the Israeli military killing 2 Palestinian civilians and injuring at least 5, at least one of them a child. more

 Gaza invasion: Powered by the U.S. 
Robert Bryce, Salon.com - Taxpayers are spending over $1 billion to send refined fuel to the Israeli military -- at a time when Israel doesn't need it and America does. more

 UK Jewish MP: Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza 
Sir Gerald Kaufman, Labour Member of UK Parliament - was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine. WATCH

 Family members die in Israeli house demolition 
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera - Israeli forces demolished the house of the Sammouni family in Gaza City after ordering them to remain in it for safety. WATCH

 Gaza Is a Concentration Camp 
Ellen Cantarow, AlterNet - One Israeli official promised a holocaust in Gaza; it is impossible to keep pace with the death toll. more

 Bomb a Ghetto, Raise a Cheer 
Max Blumenthal, Alternet - Pro-Israel Rally Attended by Big-Time NY Dems Descends into Obscene Calls for 'Wiping Out' Palestinians. WATCH

 Dennis Kucinish on Israeli use of American Weapons 
C-Span - We cannot truly celebrate a New Year, a new Congress and a new administration if all we see is the same old destruction in the Middle East with U.S. weapons being illegally used to kill children. WATCH

 Aftermath of attacks on Tar El Hawa district 
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera - The Tar El Hawa neighbourhood has been the scene of particularly heavy fighting. Red Crescent facilities, a hospital and residential apartment blocks were among the buildings hit by the Israeli bombardment. WATCH

 How Israel's Propaganda Machine Works 
James Zogby - As in past Mideast conflicts, both the media story line and political commentary here in the U.S. has closely followed Israel's talking points on the war. This has been an essential component in Israel's early success and in its ability to prolong fighting without U.S. pushback. Because it recognizes the importance of the propaganda war, Israel fights on this front as vigorously and disproportionately as it engages on the battlefield. more

 Is "pundit" actually Israeli military officer? 
Alison Weir - CNN, CBS and others use an analyst who appears to be in the foreign military on which he is commenting and yet don't divulge this fact. more

 Reigniting Violence: How Do Ceasefires End? 
Nancy Kanwisher, Johannes Haushofer, & Anat Biletzki, Huffington Post - “As Israel and Palestine suffer a hideous new spasm of terror, misery, and mayhem, it is important to ask how this situation came about. Perhaps an understanding of recent events will afford lessons for the future. more

 Israel: Stop Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza 
Human Rights Watch - “White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin. Israel should not use it in Gaza’s densely populated areas.” more

 Respected Human Rights Group: 85% of Palestinians Killed in Gaza are Civilians 
Jennifer Loewenstein - Here are some newsworthy items out of Gaza that are unlikely to be making it to the Western presses. I received this information directly from one of the staff of the Mezan Center for Human Rights about twenty minutes ago. more

 Rebuttal of Senate Resolution 
Rebuilding Alliance - The following is a point-by-point rebuttal of the US Senate’s resolution supporting Israel passed on January 8th. The House of Representatives passed a virtually identical resolution on January 9th. more

 How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe 
Avi Shlaim, The Guardian of London - Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions. more

 Gaza: ICRC demands urgent access to wounded as Israeli army fails to assist wounded Palestinians 
International Committee of the Red Cross - On the afternoon of 7 January, four Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulances and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) managed to obtain access for the first time to several houses in the Zaytun neighbourhood of Gaza City that had been affected by Israeli shelling. The ICRC had requested safe passage for ambulances to access this neighbourhood since 3 January but it only received permission to do so from the Israeli Defence Forces during the afternoon of 7 January. The ICRC/PRCS team found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. more

 Children make up third of Gaza dead 
Agence France Presse - Almost a third of the 689 Palestinians killed in Israel's Gaza offensive are children, with most killed since the start of a ground offensive after a week of aerial bombardment, medics say. more

 Palestinians Will Never Forget 
Susan Abulhawa - How can anyone watching Gaza burn escape the bitter realization that history repeats itself? Many have compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Apartheid South Africa. But not in their cruelest hour did the Apartheid regime wreak such wanton murder and destruction. Let us stop mincing words. What is happening to Palestinians now whispers of Warsaw and Lodz. more

 Israeli strikes hit UN schools 
Roza Ibragimova, Al Jazeera - The United Nations has called for an independent investigation after a third UN school has been hit by an Israeli strike, killing 40 people and injuring 45. It's the third strike on a UN school in the last 24 hours, as Al Jazeera's Roza Ibragimova reports. WATCH

 CNN Finally Confirms Israel Broke Ceasefire First 
Rick Sanchez, CNN - Rick Sanchez does the research and finds that Israel violated the terms of the ceasefire first by killing 6 Gazans on November 4. Shouldn't media outlets check the facts before running with a story? WATCH

 Gazans flee homes and seek refuge in UN schools 
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera English - As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens, many families are being displaced. About 13,000 people have fled their homes because of Israel's continuing assault on Gaza. Many lived on the outskirts of the Strip and are now in Gaza City, staying at UN schools that have been turned into makeshift shelters. WATCH

 Gazan father mourns death of baby 
Al Jazeera English - Al Jazeera obtained this account from a Palestinian father whose seven-month-old child has just been killed in the conflict. WATCH

 More children killed as war on Gaza continues 
Mohammed Vall, Al Jazeera English - The assault on Gaza is now into its tenth day. As the death and injury toll continues to rise hospitals are becoming increasingly overwhelmed. Israel however insists there is not a humanitarian crisis. WATCH

 Inside story - What is next for Gaza? - Part 1 
Al Jazeera English - The Israeli army has entered Gaza from five different positions almost all around the Strip. Tanks were reported to be in battles around Gaza City and the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya. WATCH

 Inside story - What is next for Gaza? - Part 2 
Al Jazeera English - The Israeli army has entered Gaza from five different positions almost all around the Strip. Tanks were reported to be in battles around Gaza City and the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya. WATCH

 Delicate EU-Gaza Diplomacy 
Jonah Hull, Al Jazeera English - With Israel's ground offensive into Gaza has come accelerated diplomacy to end the conflict. The Czech government is the new head of the European Union - but it did not get off to the best start. Jonah Hull reports. WATCH

 Videos about the Dec 2008 - Jan 2009 Attack on Gaza 
This section contains a number of videos on the December 2008 - January 2009 attack on Gaza. more

 Statement of the President of the 63rd Session of th UN General Assembly 
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, Ma’an News - The behavior by Israel in bombarding Gaza is simply the commission of wanton aggression by a very powerful state against a territory that it illegally occupies. more

 Israel claims success in the PR war 
Anshel Pfeffer, The Jewish Chronicle - The Gaza attack is the first major demonstration of Israel’s total overhaul of its ‘hasbara’ operation following the Second Lebanon War. While the military aspects of the operation were meticulously planned, a new forum of press advisers was also established which has been working for the past six months on a PR strategy specifically geared to dealing with the media during warfare in Gaza. more

 Gaza and the world: Will anything change? 
Ramzy Baroud, Ma’an News - In times of crisis, most Arabs tune in to Al-Jazeera television. Sometimes it’s comforting for the truth to be stated the way it is, with all of its gory and unsettling details, without blemishes and without censorship. When Israel carried out massive air strikes against Gaza on Saturday, 27 December, terrorizing an already hostage and malnourished population, I too tuned in to Al-Jazeera. more

 Molten Lead 
Uri Avnery, Ma’an News - Just after midnight Al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel was reporting on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, a terrifying droning. more

 Analysis: Operation Cast Lead extends a war doomed to fail 
Editorial, Ma’an News - Israel’s offensive in Gaza has not, and will not, achieve its stated goals. Either the goals are different from what has been stated publically, or the military establishment has backed itself into a corner and has no option other than proceeding with a course doomed to failure. more

 Gazans face ‘humanitarian crisis’ as Israeli raids intensify 
Kim Sengupta, The Independent - After six days of Israeli bombardment, aid agencies say that Gazans are facing a humanitarian crisis with air strikes causing severe problems in getting food, medicine and fuel supplies to the besiegedcivilian population. more

 The Facts about Israel’s War on Gaza 
Adam Sheets - It is crucial that one has her/his facts straight about Israel’s war on Gaza. What events brought about this dreadful situation? What needs to be done to make it stop? These questions will be answered in the content of this article, using concrete facts from a variety of news sources. more

 Israel’s ‘Crime Against Humanity’ 
Chris Hedges, TruthDig - Israel’s siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It comes close to the horrors visited on Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs. It has disturbing echoes of the Nazi ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw. more

 Gaza children too scared to step outside 
Mohammed Dawwas, The Independent - You can tell those moving about Gaza City by the mattresses on the car roofs. The streets are mostly deserted but some people are shifting from one house to another, trying to guess where the bombs might land and put distance between themselves and possible targets. Others are heading to the bakeries where there are long queues for bread. There is wreckage everywhere. more

 Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept 
Donald Macintyre and Said Ghazali, The Independent - The five Palestinian sisters were fast asleep when a night-time Israeli airstrike hit the next-door mosque in Gaza. One of the walls collapsed on to their small asbestos-roofed home and they were all killed in their beds. The eldest sister, Tahrir, was 17 years old, the youngest, Jawaher, just four. more

 Statement by Prof. Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories 
United Nations Human Rights Council - The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war. more

 Bloodied in Gaza 
Laila El-Haddad, Guardian - Silently, the world watches. And silently, governments plotted: how shall we make the clouds rain death on to Gaza? more

 December 2008 Attack on Gaza 
This section contains a number of articles on the December 2008 attack on Gaza. more

 A Dangerous Journey: Settler Violence Against Palestinian Schoolchildren Under Israeli Military Escort 
Christian Peacemaker Teams and Operation Dove - Each day, up to 25 children from the Palestinian villages of Tuba and Maghaer al-Abeed walk past the illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’on and illegal the settlement outpost of Havat Ma’on on their way to and from school in the village of At-Tuwani. For years, armed, adult settlers have attacked, threatened and harassed the children along this dangerous path. more

 Hope as Palestinians Use Nonviolence in their Struggle for Human Rights and Freedom 
Mairead Maguire (Nobel Peace Laureate), PeacePeople.com - On this the second boat journey into Gaza the siege-breakers brought with them 6 cubic meters of medicine, and their hope that by going to Gaza across the sea (only the second boat to do so in over 41 years) they would give hope to the people of Gaza and that the outside world would break its silence to the tragedy of Gaza's suffering and act to get the siege lifted. more

 Israeli Palestinians: The Unwanted Who Stayed 
Jonathan Cook, The Link - Among the images of Israel’s 60th Independence Day celebrations to be found on the internet is a photograph of CNN reporter Ben Wedeman being kicked firmly on the behind as he tries to run from the boot of an armed policeman. All around him, as other photographs reveal, journalists are fleeing for safety, families are being charged by mounted police, and parents can be seen grabbing toddlers as clouds of tear gas engulf them. The stragglers are shown with bloodied faces after a beating with police batons. more

 The World Bank Group: Supporting the Palestinian Private Sector 
World Bank Editorial - Given these facts, it is not surprising that recent World Bank analysis has shown that while Palestinian economic growth will be modestly positive this year, this trend would have been much higher if the private sector were allowed to realize its potential through the removal of movement and access restrictions by Israel. more

 British TV Documentary – Dispatches: The Killing Zone 
Sandra Jordan and Rodrigo Vasquez, Channel 4 - British report on Israeli violence in Gaza against not only Palestinian civilians, but international aid volunteers and foreign reporters as well. more

 Israeli Strip Searches: A Partial List 
Sarah Tiglao, If Americans Knew - The following is a partial list documenting the use of strip searches and forced stripping as a method for humiliating men, women, and children – fishermen, women in labor, journalists, human rights workers, medical workers, and others – routinely employed by Israeli forces. more

 VIDEO: Palestinians Document Settler Violence 
Al Jazeera English - The victim of a beating captured on videotape outside the West Bank city of Hebron has spoken about the day he was set upon by Jewish settlers. Midhat Abu Karsh, a 30-year-old Palestinian teacher was beaten for allegedly setting fire to fields in the area. Nour Odeh reports on how he and human rights groups are fighting back. more

 Stripping Palestinians has Become Common Practice: Eyewitness Accounts 
Suzanne Russ, Palestine Chronicle - On Monday, November 25, Israeli soldiers ordered a young resident of the town of Nablus to strip completely naked in the street, according to Palestinian witnesses. more

 WATCH VIDEO: West Bank attack filmed 
Tim Frank, BBC - The BBC has obtained footage of Palestinians being attacked close to a Jewish settlement in the West Bank by a group of masked men wielding baseball bats. WATCH VIDEO

 Our reign of terror, by the Israeli army 
Donald Macintyre, The Independent - In shocking testimonies that reveal abductions, beatings and torture, Israeli soldiers confess the horror they have visited on Hebron. more

 Sanctions causing Gaza to implode, say rights groups 
Ian Black, The Guardian - Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are living through their worst humanitarian crisis since the 1967 war because of the severe restrictions imposed by Israel since the Islamist movement Hamas seized power, a report says today. more

 VIDEO – Gaza: A humanitarian implosion 
The Real News Network - A coalition of eight UK-based human rights organizations released a scathing report on conditions in the Gaza Strip on Thursday. Watch Video

 Gaza: Humanitarian situation worst since 1967 
Amnesty International UK, CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Médecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save The Children UK and Trócaire - Poverty and unemployment up, hospitals suffering 12 hour a day power cuts, water and sewage system close to collapse. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is worse now than it's been at any time since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, according to a new report published today (6 March) by a coalition of leading humanitarian and human rights organisations. The weekend's upsurge in violence and human misery underlines the urgency of this report. more

 Video: Old Palestinian Man Describes Being Shot 

 Gaza: Israel Blocks 670 Students from Studies Abroad 
Human Rights Watch - The Israeli government is arbitrarily blocking some 670 students in Gaza from pursuing higher education abroad, Human Rights Watch said today. Israel is denying exit permits that the young men and women need to leave Gaza for university programs in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Germany, Britain, and the United States. more

 Israeli Settlement Activity in and around the Old City 
PLO Negotiations Support Unit - Illegal Israeli settlement activity in and around occupied East Jerusalem has intensified following the re-launch of peace negotiations between the PLO and Israel at the Annapolis conference in November 2007. New settlement housing units are being constructed in and around the Old City of Jerusalem to form an inner ring in the so-called "Holy Basin", a densely populated Palestinian area, as well as an outer ring around the whole of East Jerusalem. more

 Israel shaken by troops' tales of brutality against Palestinians 
Conal Urquhart, UK Guardian - A study by an Israeli psychologist into the violent behaviour of the country's soldiers is provoking bitter controversy and has awakened urgent questions about the way the army conducts itself in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. more

 Treachery for treatment 
Saleh Al-Naami, Al-Ahram Weekly - His calm demeanour belies the personal tragedy he is living. Journalist Bassam Al-Wahidi, 30, is on the verge of giving in to perpetual darkness. This will happen if he doesn't have an operation to reposition his retina, an operation that he was supposed to have had last month in a Palestinian hospital in Jerusalem. Although Al-Wahidi, a news presenter on the Voice of the Workers radio station in Gaza, had completed all the necessary administrative procedures required of him to travel to Jerusalem, officers in the Israeli domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, at the Erez Crossing on the northern border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, won't allow him to cross until he agrees to become an Israeli agent and provide information on the activities, leaders and members of Palestinian resistance movements active in Gaza. more

 Siege of Al Ain Refugee Camp 
Alison Weir - I've been outside the Ain camp in Nablus, where the Israeli military has people under siege. They shot a crippled man early this morning and then would not allow the ambulance in to treat him. He died -- he was a civilian, not part of the resistance. more

 Twilight Zone / The children of 5767 
Gideon Levy in Haaretz - It was a pretty quiet year, relatively speaking. Only 457 Palestinians and 10 Israelis were killed, according to the B'Tselem human rights organization, including the victims of Qassam rockets. Fewer casualties than in many previous years. However, it was still a terrible year: 92 Palestinian children were killed (fortunately, not a single Israeli child was killed by Palestinians, despite the Qassams). One-fifth of the Palestinians killed were children and teens - a disproportionate, almost unprecedented number. The Jewish year of 5767. Almost 100 children, who were alive and playing last New Year, didn't survive to see this one. more

 The Land Mark 
Samia Khoury - "No Street names or street numbers" is something that amazes foreign guests in our area. How does one tell the taxi driver to get anywhere? Well you almost have to write an essay as you describe the way; the first entrance after the supermarket, and then the left turn after the traffic light. No, do not take the first one; the second one, just before the check point. No, you do not pass the checkpoint. etc. etc. more

 The Death of Samir Dari 
Neve Gordon and Yigal Bronner in the Dissident Voice - Almost a year and a half has passed since our friend Samir Dari was gunned down by an Israeli policeman. Samir, an Israeli resident and father of two, approached a group of policemen who had just detained his brother on a street corner not far away from his house and demanded the latter’s release. There are conflicting versions about how the events unfolded, but there is no dispute about the following facts: Samir was unarmed and the policeman Shmuel Yechezkel shot him from close range in the back. more

 Witness for the Defenseless 
Anna Baltzer in The Link - Every time I think I have understood the Israel/Palestine conflict, something will remind me how much more I have to learn. My first breakthrough came during a trip to southern Lebanon, where for the first time I heard a narrative about the state of Israel altogether different from the one I had learned growing up as a Jewish American. more

 Israeli army forces women to strip at Bethlehem checkpoint 
Maisa Abu Ghazalah, IMEMC News - "It seems that there are plans to topple the honor of Palestinian girls in the clutches of the Israeli intelligence through blackmail at checkpoints and military crossings, and I don’t doubt that inside the inspection rooms there are cameras video taping girls undressing." more

 Khouloud Daibes: Israeli soldiers forcing women to submit to strip searches at checkpoints 
Ma'an News Agency - Khouloud Daibes, the minister of Women's Affairs in the new emergency government, condemned the behaviour of Israeli soldiers in forcing Palestinians to submit to strip searches at a military check point near Beit Safafa, north of Bethlehem. more

  And we sleep. 
Laila El-Haddad in Raising Yousuf, Unplugged: diary of a Palestinian mother - We go to sleep now waiting for the next round of Israeli attacks against "Hamas targets". That is what they are calling them now. Last night, I couldn't sleep again. The drones were waxing and waning in intensity overhead. And then of course the Apaches. And the explosions. more

 Israel 2007: worse than apartheid 
South African Minister for Intelligence Services Ronnie Kasrils in the Mail & Guardian - Travelling into Palestine’s West Bank and Gaza Strip, which I visited recently, is like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency. It is chilling to pass through the myriad checkpoints -- more than 500 in the West Bank. They are controlled by heavily armed soldiers, youthful but grim, tensely watching every movement, fingers on the trigger. more

 And now, a fetus 
Gideon Levy in Haaretz - Memorial posters decorate the walls of the Rafidiya government hospital in Nablus, covering earlier posters of countless young people who have been killed. But this poster is like nothing we have seen before: a fetus covered in its own blood, its tiny head blown up by the bullet that struck its mother, and the caption - "Who gave you the right to steal his life?" more

 A capital question: More Palestinians are losing their right to live in Jerusalem than ever before 
The Economist - On May 15th, “Nakba [Catastrophe] Day”, Palestinians mourn the loss of most of their homeland to the newborn state of Israel. In a grim irony for them, this year's “Jerusalem Day”, the date in the lunar Jewish calendar when Israel celebrates its “reunification” of the city after capturing the West Bank in the 1967 war, falls the day after. The 245,000 Palestinians from Jerusalem itself will feel the irony extra sharply. Last year 1,363 of them, many from generations-old Jerusalem families, lost their right to live in the city—up more than six-fold on the year before, and the highest annual total ever. more

 Utterly Forbidden: The Torture And Ill-Treatment Of Palestinian Detainees 
B'Tselem & HaMoked - In recent years, Israel has openly admitted that ISA (formerly the General Security Service) interrogators employ "exceptional" interrogation methods and "physical pressure" against Palestinian detainees in situations labeled "ticking bombs". B'Tselem and HaMoked - Center for the Defence of the Individual have examined these interrogation methods and the frequency with which they are used, as well as other harmful practices. The report's findings are based on the testimonies of 73 Palestinian residents of the West Bank who were arrested between July 2005 and January 2006 and interrogated by the ISA. Although it is not a representative sample, it does provide a valid indication of the frequency of the reported phenomena. more

 Why Israel is after me 
Azmi Bishara in the Los Angeles Times - I am a Palestinian from Nazareth, a citizen of Israel and was, until last month, a member of the Israeli parliament. But now, in an ironic twist reminiscent of France's Dreyfus affair – in which a French Jew was accused of disloyalty to the state – the government of Israel is accusing me of aiding the enemy during Israel's failed war against Lebanon in July. more

 Israel's lab in Palestine 
Mel Frykberg in Al-Ahram Weekly - Doctors in Gaza have been reporting strange wounds on the bodies of innocent bystanders and those targeted by drones. These wounds consist of many small holes, often invisible to X-rays, and burns caused by heat so intense that many cases have required amputation because of the extensive burning. more

 Report: “68 women gave birth on checkpoints, 34 infants and 4 women died” 
IMEMC - The Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens Rights (PICCR) reported that Israeli troops stationed at hundreds of roadblocks in the occupied territories barred dozens of pregnant women from crossing the checkpoints while in labor; 34 infants and four women died on their roadblocks. more

 Humiliation and Child Abuse at Israeli Borders & Airports: Strip-Searching Children 
Alison Weir in Counter Punch - Israeli officials have been regularly strip-searching children for decades, some of them American citizens. While organizations that focus on Israel-Palestine have long been aware that Israeli border officials regularly strip search men and women, If Americans Knew appears to be the first organization that has specifically investigated the policy of strip searching women. In the course of its investigation, If Americans Knew was astonished to learn that Israeli officials have also been strip searching young girls as young as seven and below. more

 The Prevalence of Torture 
Ralph Schoenman in The Hidden History of Zionism - The use of torture in Israeli prisons has been the subject of extensive inquiry. In 1977, the London Sunday Times conducted a five-month investigation. Corroboration was obtained for the evidence adduced. The torture documented occurred “through the ten years of Israeli occupation since 1967. The Sunday Times study presented the cases of forty-four Palestinians who were tortured. It documented practices in seven centers: prisons within the four principal cities of Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron and Gaza; the interrogation and detention center in Jerusalem known as the Russian Compound or Moscobiya; and special military centers located in Gaza and Sarafand. more

 We didn't disappear: the Struggle for Equality Inside Israel 
Jonathan Cook in Al-Ahram Weekly - The official political leadership of Israel's more than one million Palestinian citizens issued a manifesto in Nazareth last week demanding a raft of changes to end the systematic discrimination exercised against non-Jews by the state since its creation nearly six decades ago. more

 I Want to Keep my Wife!  
Ghassan Abdallah - Israel has decreed that my wife and I can no longer live together. I am Palestinian and she is Swiss and we have been married for 28 years. She was given two weeks to leave the occupied Palestinian territory. The Israeli Ministry of Interior wrote on her Swiss passport: “LAST PERMIT.” We have been living together in Ramallah for 12 years. We came in 1994, when, after the Oslo Agreement, we were encouraged to move to the West Bank by the prospect of ‘peace’ and development. more

 The last casualty? 
Gideon Levy in Haaretz - The numbers don't lie. They never do. In the past month, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces was 45 times greater than the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians. The Palestinian dead included 13 minors. All in one deadly month. The last name on the list is Ayman Abu-Mahdi, a 10-year-old boy who had come home from school and gone out to get a little air with his siblings and friends. He was sitting on a bench in front of his house. The time: 15 hours before the cease-fire in Gaza. more

 Gaza and Darfur 
Alexander Cockburn in CounterPunch - As a zone of ongoing, large-scale bloodletting Darfur in the western Sudan has big appeal for US news editors. Americans are not doing the killing, or paying for others to do it. So there's no need to minimize the vast slaughter with the usual drizzle of "allegations." There's no political risk here in sounding off about genocide in Darfur. The crisis in Darfur is also very photogenic. more

 Row erupts over Israeli textbooks 
BBC - Israel's education minister has said school textbooks should show Israel's pre-1967 borders, prompting a storm of criticism from right-wingers. more

 Rabbis forbid using books with map of pre-1967 lines 
Akiva Eldar in Haaretz - An organization of right-wing rabbis on Tuesday issued a Halakhic decree forbidding students from using schoolbooks featuring maps of Israel which include the Green Line, Israel Radio reported. more

 Silent Ethnic Cleansing 
John Dugard in IRIN News - A thousand West Bank Palestinians holding foreign passports have been expelled from their homes and thousands more face a similar fate after Israel tightened its visa regime, according to Palestinian campaigners. more

 Does It Matter What You Call It? Genocide or Erasure of Palestinians 
Kathleen and Bill Christison - During an appearance in late October on Ireland's Pat Kenny radio show, a popular national program broadcast daily on Ireland's RTE Radio, we were asked as the opening question if Israel could be compared to Nazi Germany. Not across the board, we said, but there are certainly some aspects of Israel's policy toward the Palestinians that bear a clear resemblance to the Nazis' oppression. Do you mean the wall, Kenny prompted, and we agreed, describing the ghettoization and other effects of this monstrosity. Before we could elaborate on other Nazi-like features of Israel's policies, Kenny moved on to another question. Within minutes, while we were still on the air, a producer handed Kenny a note, which we later learned was a request from the newly arrived Israeli ambassador to Ireland to appear on the show, by himself. Several days later, on the air by himself, the ambassador pronounced us and our comparisons of Israeli and Nazi policies "outrageous." more

 Commentary: Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped 
John Dugard in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Former President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," is igniting controversy for its allegation that Israel practices a form of apartheid. As a South African and former anti-apartheid advocate who visits the Palestinian territories regularly to assess the human rights situation for the U.N. Human Rights Council, the comparison to South African apartheid is of special interest to me. more

 Aid agencies condemn Gaza carnage 
BBC - International aid agencies have reacted with dismay to the violence in Gaza in which at least 18 Palestinian civilians are known to have died. more

 Ethnic cleansing returns to Israel's agenda 
Johann Hari in The Independent of London - When Jorg Haider's far-right Freedom Party joined the governing coalition in Austria in 2000, the world offered a collective retch and moved to isolate the country. In the past fortnight, a startlingly similar far-right politician named Avigdor Lieberman has joined the governing coalition in Israel – in the lofty position of Deputy Prime Minister – but the world's gagging reflex has yet to respond. more

 Palestinian human rights NGOs condemn Beit Hanoun Massacre; call for international investigation 
11 Human Rights Organizations - The Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) have committed an appalling act of mass murder in the town of Beit Hanoun today, one day after they redeployed around it. At dawn, the IOF fired eleven artillery shells on six homes in the town killing 18 civilians; seven of whom are children and six of whom are women. 53 others were wounded; of whom 25 are children and 12 are women. With this, the number of Palestinians who have been killed since the commencement of the IOF operation in Beit hanoun on 1 November 2006 has reached 77. more

 Israel’s Attorney General receives 40 torture complaints in past year, investigates none 
Nir Hasson in Haaretz - Twenty-four hours before the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit, Israel Defense Forces soldiers broke into the home of Mustafa Abu Ma'amar in Rafah. Special forces soldiers arrested him and his brother in their respective homes. more

 Italian probe: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip 
Meron Rapoport in Haaretz - An investigative report to be aired on Italian television Wednesday raises the possibility that Israel has used an experimental weapon in the Gaza Strip in recent months, causing especially serious physical injuries, such as amputated limbs and severe burns. more

 One blow to the brain 
Dalia Karpel in Haaretz - n Friday, August 11th, when the end of the Lebanon War was on the horizon, after several weeks in which no more than token protests had taken place in Bil'in, the weekly demonstration against the separation fence began. Border Police troops, who were waiting, threw stun grenades and fired rubber-coated metal bullets at the demonstrators, even before they left the village to head toward the fence. Limor Goldstein, 28, was wounded in the head by gunfire from a Border Police officer. As documented on the video that was being shot at the time there, two hours elapsed from the time he was injured until he was brought by ambulance to the emergency room at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. more

 Palestinian children pay price of Israel's Summer Rain offensive 
Rory McCarthy in the UK Guardian - Rights group says 197 civilians have been killed in Israeli military operation, including 48 minors . more

 American Comedian Strip Searched at Israeli Airport 
Emily - I want to tell you the story of what happened to my friend Maysoon Zayid when she left Ben Gurion Airport a few days ago to fly back to NYC. She called me when she landed in NYC and said "Emily you won't believe what happened to me at Ben Gurion Airport... I should note that Maysoon has cerebral palsy and went through this whole process in a wheelchair at Ben Gurion airport. more

 Israel intensifies Gaza action 
Al Jazeera - Israel has begun fresh air strikes in the Gaza Strip after pledging to intensify its military offensive on the territory that has killed 51 Palestinians in two weeks. more

 Severe shortages stymie life in Gaza 
Ilene R. Prusher in The CS Monitor - As the Palestinian conflict with Israel over a kidnapped soldier drags on, most crossings out of Gaza have been closed. Hardly a trickle of goods and people goes in or out. At least half the electricity has been knocked out, slowing sanitation, sewage treatment, refrigeration, communication, and transportation. more

 High Court decision institutionalizes racial discrimination 
Amnesty International - The decision by the Israeli High Court of Justice on 14 May to uphold a law which explicitly denies family rights on the basis of ethnicity or national origins is a step further in the institutionalization of racial discrimination in Israel. more

 Bulletin on Suicide Bombing 
If Americans Knew - On Monday, April 17th, a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv killed nine Israelis, the deadliest such bombing in two years. The media provided graphic information on this bombing but omitted considerable information of relevance. In the last two and a half weeks alone Israeli forces have killed at least 26 Palestinians – at least 5 of them children – and injured 161 Palestinian men, women and children. A college student lost her right eye today after being shot by an Israeli sniper last week. more

 Palestinian civilians, first victims of the escalation of violence and the withholding of direct financial aid 
Médecins du Monde - Since 1st April, the northern Gaza strip has been the target of relentless shelling by the Israeli military forces, allegedly in response to the firing of Palestinian rockets . Over 2,500 shells have been fired, in addition to air strikes which regularly target civilian areas. Civilian populations are the first victims and it has resulted so far in the death of 16 people and 77 injured. In addition, daily incursions in Nablus since 1st April have incurred 1 casualty, 32 injured and 50 arrests. more

 Photo: Palestinian Child Bleeds 
Nayef Hashlamoun in PalestineToday.org - A Palestinian woman reacts as she sits beside her daughter, as Israeli soldiers stand around a Palestinian injured girl Nisreen Abu Hashhash, an 8-year-old Palestinian girl who was injured in the face by a rubber bullet. more

 Torture, Anyone? 
Nabeel Abraham in Lies of Our Times - On February 4, 1992, Mustafa Akawi, a 35-year-old Palestinian, died while being detained in a prison on the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Akawi’s death touched off demonstrations by Palestinians and calls by human rights groups for an investigation. The first that readers of the New York Times learned about these events was in a photo caption that appeared on February 7. The photo depicted two outstretched arms collaring a Palestinian demonstrator. The caption noted that the Israeli police had announced an investigation into “the death of a Palestinian prisoner in the West Bank” (“Arabs Protest Killing of West Bank Prisoner,” p. A11). An astute reader might conclude that Akawi had died as a result of torture, but the Times, keeping to past practice, avoided the suggestion. more

 UN expert: Jewish settlers 'terrorize' Palestinians 
The Associated Press in Haaretz - Jewish settlers are able to "terrorize" Palestinians with impunity, intimidating children on their way to school and destroying farmers' trees and crops, a United Nations expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict said in a report. more

 In Gaza, there's no milk, no sugar and tomatoes are rotting on the vines 
Arnon Regular in Haaretz - "In a few days there'll be a flour shortage, and if that happens there'll be a conflagration here - but it will be directed against the Israelis, not Hamas," Deputy Minister of Economics in the Palestinian Authority, Nasser Saraj, said yesterday about the closure of the Karni border crossing. The crossing has been completely closed since February 21, and since the beginning of the year it has not been open for more than 12 days. more

 Commentary: The Truth You Don’t Hear 
Mustafa Barghouti in Al-Ahram Weekly - What is the current situation on the ground in Palestine? The Israeli narrative that continues to dominate the international media presents an image that is absolutely at odds with reality. The Gaza redeployment was spun as the beginning of a peace process; a great retreat by General Ariel Sharon, who was portrayed as a man of peace. Yet the fact remains that Palestine is 27,000 square kilometres, of which the West Bank constitutes only 5,860 square kilometres, and the Gaza Strip, just 360 sq km. This is equal to only 1.3 per cent of the total land of historic Palestine. So even if Sharon really had withdrawn from Gaza, this would amount to just 5.8 per cent of the occupied territories. more

 War by Remote Control 
Meron Benvenisti in the major Israeli daily Haaretz - As opposed to the expectations of many, the disengagement has not brought about real progress toward peace, but undoubtedly caused a revolutionary change in the way war is conducted. The violence of body touching body and eye meeting eye, the friction saturated with hatred at the checkpoints and in the alleyways, and the sight of spilled blood – the intimate violence of conflicted communities – is changing in front of our eyes, and has become a push-button war, shooting via TV screens, robots and computers, and long range artillery. more

 Israel redraws the roadmap, building quietly and quickly 
Chris McGreal in the UK Guardian - At the northern edge of Jerusalem, on the main road to the Palestinian city of Ramallah, three towering concrete walls are converging around a rapidly built maze of cages, turnstiles and bomb-proof rooms. When construction at Qalandiya is completed in the coming weeks, the remaining gaps in the 8m (26ft)-high walls will close and those still permitted to travel between the two cities will be channelled through a warren of identity and security checks reminiscent of an international frontier. more

 Shooting and Hitting 
Shahar Ginossar in Yediot Ahronot, Translated from Hebrew by Mark Marshall -
‘Another paediatrician and another baker
Got a bullet in the face from a paratroopers unit
All day we search houses and kill children’
From a song of a paratroopers’ unit that participated in Operation Calm Waters in Nablus, beginning of 2004 more

 Life in Tel Rumeida 
Chelli Stanley - Though each area of Palestine can be said to be unique, Tel Rumeida is truly a world unto itself. Located in the Israeli-controlled area of Hebron, Tel Rumeida is a small neighborhood living out the brutal extravagance of direct Israeli occupation. If Tel Rumeida is viewed as a microcosm of the Israeli plan for Palestine, the sometimes subtle realities of Palestinian life under occupation and the type of Palestinian state Israel desires can be more easily comprehended. more

 Palestinians Struggle to Hold on to Land, Watering Holes 
Henry Norr in the Berkeley Daily Planet - Life in the tiny Palestinian hamlet of Qawawis seems straight out of the Old Testament, but that doesn’t stop the Jewish settlers in the hilltop outposts that surround the place from doing their best to destroy it. And if something isn’t done soon about the settlers’ latest threat—denying Qawawis’s shepherds access to watering holes their flocks depend on—the villagers might have no choice but to abandon their ancestral homes and lands. more

 Israeli aircraft drop threatening leaflets on Gaza 
Electronic Intifada - Gaza, Al-Watan, September 27, 2005 – Israeli warplanes last night dropped thousands of leaflets directed at residents of the Gaza Strip. more

 I saw youths with murder in their eyes, I saw a paramedic abandon someone wounded 
Nir Hasson in Haaretz - Someone alerted a paramedic; He wavered for twenty seconds on whether or not to treat Hilal, and during that time one of the attackers yelled to him: “If you treat him, we’ll kill you.” He turned with an embarrassed look and left. The injured man lay, blood covering his face, losing consciousness. more

 Killing children is no longer a big deal 
Gideon Levy in Haaretz - More than 30 Palestinian children were killed in the first two weeks of Operation Days of Penitence in the Gaza Strip. It’s no wonder that many people term such wholesale killing of children “terror.” Whereas in the overall count of all the victims of the intifada the ratio is three Palestinians killed for every Israeli killed, when it comes to children the ratio is 5:1. According to B’Tselem, the human rights organization, even before the current operation in Gaza, 557 Palestinian minors (below the age of 18) were killed, compared to 110 Israeli minors. more

 Inside scarred minds 
Daniel Day-Lewis in The Sunday Times of London Magazine - On his first visit to the Gaza Strip, Daniel Day-Lewis meets the Palestinian families living in the heart of the danger zone – and the psychologists who are counselling them more

 Israeli Troops Kill 3 Palestinian Teens 
Ibrahim Barzak in the (AP) - GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops fired at a group of Palestinians in a southern Gaza Strip refugee camp Saturday, killing three teenagers in the deadliest incident in Gaza since Israel and the Palestinians declared a cease-fire two months ago. more

 Racism by Any Other Name 
Yitzhak Laor in Haaretz - It was announced this week that the government plans to stiffen the rules for granting citizenship to non-Jews, through amendments to the law that make it difficult to grant legal status to Palestinians and other foreigners married to Israeli citizens. more

 A Short History of Apartheid 
Dr. Azmi Bishara in AMIN - Rhetoric about demography so dominates Israel’s political discourse that one might be tempted to assume that Israel has abandoned its preferred designation as the Jewish democratic state in favour of the Jewish demographic state. more

 Arab Israeli beats Jewish boys in quiz on Zionism 
Donald Macintyre and Said Ghazali in The Independent of London - In a fortnight when two Arab footballers have kept Israel in World Cup contention, an Arab schoolboy has beaten hundreds of Jewish children to win a quiz focused on the history of Zionism. more

 Who’s in Charge Here? 
Amira Hass in Haaretz - The Israeli intelligence officials and those who quote them in the press are right when they say that it’s not Abu Mazen and the Palestinian Authority security services who are in control in the Gaza Strip. The intelligence sources and those who quote them are misleading however, when they say that armed gangs and the Hamas run Gaza. The IDF runs Gaza. more

 Medical Treatment Abroad for Gaza Residents: closures and Access 
World Health Organization - Since 13th of December 2004, restriction of passage through Rafah and Erez crossing in Gaza strip has prevented most patients to reach health care facilities abroad, in order to receive specialized care not locally available. more

 Water War Leaves Palestinians Thirsty 
BBC News - Like many other things in the region, water is in hot dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. more

 Fact Sheet – Water in Palestine 
Palestine Monitor - Of the water available from West Bank aquifers, Israel uses 73%, West Bank Palestinians use 17%, and illegal Jewish settlers use 10%. While 10-14% of Palestine’s GDP is agricultural, 90% of them must rely on rain-fed farming methods. Israel’s agriculture is only 3% of their GDP, but Israel irrigates more than 50% of its land. more

 Blood and Water, Part One 
Jessica McCallin in Grist Magazine - Oil, namely the vast reserves in Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, is the cause of many of the broad geopolitical battles plaguing the Middle East. But it is access to water, a more fundamental resource, that is at the root of much of the bitter conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. more

 Blood and Water, Part Two 
A variety of explanations have been offered as to why Israel is reluctant to redistribute water resources. The most obvious reason is that doing so would require a change in Israeli lifestyles: no more private swimming pools and green lawns. But the motives go deeper than that, according to Robin Twite, director of the Environment Program for the Jerusalem-based Israeli/Palestine Center for Research and Information, a public-policy think-tank. Twite says Israelis have what he calls a “mythical belief in development.” more

 How Much is Enough? 
Khaled Amayreh in Al-Ahram Weekly - As Palestinians agree to a general cease-fire Israel announces it will steal yet more land, reports Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank. more

 Israel Abducts, Tortures Wives Of Palestinian Resistance Fighters 
Islam Online and News Agencies in Palestine Chronicle - [Feb. 2003] Israeli occupation forces have recently started a heavy abduction campaign among the wives of the Palestinian resistance fighters and the women affiliated to Islamic groups in Palestinian universities. more

 Vandals Foul Palestinian village’s Water Supply 
Amira Hass in Haaretz - The Madama village’s spring was deliberately contaminated and its water supply system was sabotaged 10 days ago, village council head Ayed Kamal said Sunday. This is the sixth time in the past three years that the spring, the only source of water of the village’s 1,700 residents, and the water system, has been deliberately damaged. The village is located near the extremist Yitzhar settlement and its outposts. more

 Israel Ends Some Home Demolitions 
Amos Harel in Haaretz - Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz adopted the recommendation made by a military committee to end the policy of demolishing houses belonging to terrorists’ families. The majority of home demolitions, however, will not be halted. more

 Injustice and Stupidity in Jerusalem 
Haaretz - In July 2004, Israel’s cabinet adopted a decision that was neither made public nor even published in the official government gazette, Reshumot: to apply the Absentee Property Law to East Jerusalem, and thereby to confiscate thousands of dunams of land from owners who live in the West Bank. The reason for the decision was security-related: Since in practice, West Bank residents are barred from entering East Jerusalem because of the intifada, the cabinet decided to enact an official measure that would prevent any use of these lands by their owners in the future as well, and would explicitly state that henceforth their property belongs to the State of Israel. more

 Israeli government decision aims to strip Palestinians of their properties in East Jerusalem 
Meron Rappaport in Haaretz - The Sharon government implemented the Absentee Property Law in East Jerusalem last July, contrary to Israeli government policy, since Israeli law was extended to East Jerusalem after the Six Day War. The law means that thousands of Palestinians who live in the West Bank will lose ownership of their property in East Jerusalem. more

 Border Policeman gets 14 months jail for abusing Palestinians 
Yuval Yoaz in Haaretz - Border Policeman Nir Levy was convicted by Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Thursday in the aggravated assault and abuse of a helpless Palestinian civilian. more

 New year, old story 
Gideon Levy in Haaretz - During operations last weekend in the Gaza Strip, the army demolished 14 Palestinian homes, injured 30 Palestinians and killed 10, including a mentally disabled youth. Ringing in 2005. more

 Overview of the Palestinian Presidential Election – Written and Audio 
IMEMC News - In the coming January 9 Palestinian presidential election, three parties are running candidates, and four independents are also running – 7 candidates in total are running for the position of president. Read and listen to the overview.

 Palestine: the assault on health and other war crimes 
Derek Summerfield in the British Medical Journal - Does the death of an Arab weigh the same as that of a US or Israeli citizen? The Israeli army, with utter impunity, has killed more unarmed Palestinian civilians since September 2000 than the number of people who died on September 11, 2001. In conducting 238 extrajudicial executions the army has also killed 186 bystanders (including 26 women and 39 children). Two thirds of the 621 children (two thirds under 15 years) killed at checkpoints, in the street, on the way to school, in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed in over half of cases to the head, neck and chest—the sniper’s wound. more

 No One Changed the Rules 
Gidoen Levy in Haaretz - A gross injustice was done to the Naval Commando unit. The members of the Shayetet, as the elite unit is known in Hebrew, were on another routine liquidation mission, like dozens of others before it, and they executed the mission superbly – wounding, liquidating and getting out without any casualties. more

 Israel shocked by image of soldiers forcing violinist to play at roadblock  
Chris McGreal in the UK Guardian - Of all the revelations that have rocked the Israeli army over the past week, perhaps none disturbed the public so much as the video footage of soldiers forcing a Palestinian man to play his violin. more

View footage of the incident

 ‘I punched an Arab in the face’ 
Gideon Levy in Ha’aretz - Staff Sergeant (res.) Liran Ron Furer cannot just routinely get on with his life anymore. He is haunted by images from his three years of military service in Gaza and the thought that this could be a syndrome afflicting everyone who serves at checkpoints gives him no respite. more

 Of Settler Crimes and Media Silence 
Al Jazeera - If Americans appreciated the scale of human-rights abuses committed by Israeli colonists in the occupied territories, they would condemn the journalists who keep them in the dark, a US peace activist says. more

 Israeli officer: I was right to shoot 13-year-old child  
Chris McGreal in the UK Guardian - An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old. more

 ‘Racist’ Bill Raises Storm in Israel’s Knesset 
Gideon Alon in Haaretz - A furor erupted October 11, 2004 in the Israeli parliament when the presidium agreed to allow a National Union MK to introduce a draft law perceived as being racist. more

 ‘Speak Hebrew or shut up’ 
Etgar Keret in the UK Guardian - Israel’s official code of ethics says troops can only use force if threatened. But at a checkpoint near Nablus, Israeli author Etgar Keret witnessed another code of behaviour in operation... more

 Death in a cemetery 
Gideon Levy in Haaretz Daily - How many of us can imagine the night of horror that the Salah family endured? To lie on the floor of the living room for what seemed an eternity, embracing as one being, trembling with fear as the house was blasted with bullets and missiles; to watch the sniper’s laser ray doing its dance of death across the apartment, searching out its victims; to see the missiles slamming into the walls of the house, missile after missile, as though an earthquake had struck... more

 Living beside the checkpoints 
Amira Hass in Haaretz Daily - The soldiers at the Haware checkpoint at the southern entrance to Nablus shouted commands in Arabic: Rukh (walk), Wakf (stand), Iftah (open). Dozens of women, crowded between the rows of cement plates, waited about half an hour for their turn to be checked. The last thing that interested them was the bad pronunciation and the use of the masculine gender. The women were thinking about the taxis waiting on the southern side of the checkpoint, about 200 meters away, that would take them home. The men stood in a separate line. The men and women watched silently as the three soldiers stopped a young man between the cement plates. Two aimed their rifles at him as the third shackled his hands behind his back with white plastic bracelets. more

 Hardline threat to al-Aqsa Mosque 
Khalid Amayreh in Al Jazeera - Israel’s Public Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi has said hardline Jewish groups may be planning to carry out attacks on the two most sacred Islamic shrines in occupied East Jerusalem. more

 In Jenin, Seven Shattered Dreams 
Molly Moore in the Washington Post - As Mahmoud Kaneri, 25-year-old stonemason, traced the name across the polished tombstone in the Jenin Martyrs Cemetery, he was transported to another time and another place – a theater stage where he and his closest childhood friends once stood in shimmering robes and delivered lines imbued with optimism. more

 If it were the reverse 
Gideon Levy in Israel’s Haaretz Daily - What would happen if a Palestinian terrorist were to detonate a bomb at the entrance to an apartment building in Israel and cause the death of an elderly man in a wheelchair, who would later be found buried under the rubble of the building? more

 Separation Spells Racism 
Azmi Bishara in Al Ahram Weekly - Polls confirm time and again the racism rooted deep within Israeli society. The struggle for Palestinian rights, therefore, has always been universal. more

 The Nightmare Comes True 
Uri Avnery in CounterPunch - I thought it was terrible. I was wrong. It is far, far worse!—These words sum up my feelings at that moment. I was standing on a hill overlooking the infamous Kalandia checkpoint. more

 Israel’s Common Use of Torture Must Be Exposed 
Mustafa Barghouthi in The Daily Star - The pictures of American soldiers torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have shocked the world. To the Palestinian people however, these photographs of hooded or naked figures come as no surprise. For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have served time in Israeli prisons, the pictures only bring back memories of their own torture. more

 Genocide By Public Policy 
Sam Bahour and Michael Dahan in AMIN - Many words are taboo when used to describe Israel’s actions against Palestinians. One word in specific, genocide, sparks emotions that echo across Israel, Europe and America. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines genocide as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.” What is happening in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip today is dangerously encroaching on genocide, close enough so that the pictures of Palestinians in Rafah loading their meager belongings on carts and evacuating their homes are too reminiscent of another time, another place and another people. more

 An Old Refrain that Stabs at the Heart 
Meron Benvenisti in Ha’aretz - The sights of Rafah are too difficult to bear – trails of refugees alongside carts laden with bedding and the meager contents of their homes; children dragging suitcases larger than themselves; women draped in black kneeling in mourning on piles of rubble. And in the memories of some of us, whose number is dwindling, arise similar scenes that have been a part of our lives, as a sort of refrain that stabs at the heart and gnaws at the conscience, time after time, for over half a century – the procession of refugees from Lod to Ramallah in the heat of July 1948; the convoys of banished residents of Yalu and Beit Nuba, Emmaus and Qalqilyah in June 1967; the refugees of Jericho climbing on the ruins of the Allenby Bridge after the Six-Day War. more

 Activists say Border Police held boy, 13, as human shield  
Reuters and Ha’aretz Service - When older Palestinian boys started throwing stones at Border Police officers in the flashpoint West Bank village of Biddu last week, 13-year-old Muhammed Badwan went along to watch. He ended up on the hood of a Border Police jeep, at least one of his skinny arms tied to a wire mesh screen that blocks the windshield from incoming stones. more

 Palestinian Children Killed by Israel 
Khalid Amayreh in Al Jazeera - One of the most disturbing aspects of the strife between Israel and the Palestinians has been the killing and maiming of children. more

 UNRWA Suspends Emergency Food Aid in Gaza 
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) today stopped distributing emergency food aid to some 600,000 refugees in the Gaza Strip, or approximately half of the refugees receiving UNRWA food aid in the occupied Palestinian territory, following restrictions introduced by Israeli authorities at the sole commercial crossing through which the Agency is able to bring in humanitarian assistance. Stocks of rice, flour, cooking oil and other essential foodstuffs that UNRWA provides to refugees reduced to poverty, or otherwise affected by a humanitarian crisis now in its 42nd month, have been fully depleted. more

 Social, Economic and Political Status of Arab Citizens of Israel 
Mossawa, The Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel - This report will highlight the social, economic, and political status of the Arab citizens of Israel. It will sketch an outline of the numerous challenges facing Arabs on a daily basis, including the issues of citizenship, religious and cultural rights, housing and planning issues, socioeconomic status, women’s status, discrimination in governmental funding, political participation, and human rights. more

 A Jew Among 25,000 Muslims 
Jonathan Cook in the UK Guardian - Even as a young girl in Wimbledon Susan Nathan knew she would one day move to Israel. But why did she choose to settle in the Arab town of Tamra? more

 WCC demands Israel dismantle its barrier 
World Council of Churches Press Release - The executive committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has issued a powerful appeal to the Israeli government demanding that they “stop and reverse the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”. The “construction and location” of the Israeli wall on occupied Palestinian territory is a “violation of the Charter of the United Nations and fundamental principles of international law”, says the WCC executive committee in a statement adopted during its 17-20 February 2004 meeting in Geneva. It also calls on all member churches and ecumenical partners to “condemn the wall as an act of unlawful annexation”, which “should not be recognised by any state”. more

 Child Unable to Pass Through the Apartheid Wall Dies 
Mohamed Hashem, a two year old child from the village of Ras Atieh south of Qalqiliya died Sunday, February 8, 2004 as his family, imprisoned behind the Apartheid Wall, was not able to reach emergency medical attention. Early Sunday morning the child began feeling sick and quickly developed a high fever. The parents brought the child to the local doctor in Habla who determined that the boy should to be taken to the hospital immediately. more

 UN warns of Palestinian ‘despair’ 
Imogen Foulkes for the BBC - Speaking in Geneva, Peter Hansen, the head of UN Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa), appealed for greater commitment from the international community. He warned that unless the refugees were given some reason to hope for an improvement in their lives, they would be unlikely to have faith in the Middle East peace process. more

 The Psychological Implications of Israel’s Separation Wall on Palestinians 
Palestinian Counseling Center Report - The Separation Wall that the Israeli government is said to be building for security reasons stands at 8 meters (25 feet) high. This wall will approximately affect 90,700 Palestinian residents of 32 villages in the Qalqilya area and will isolate and thus effectively confiscate 47,020 dunums of land (11,755 acres) and will destroy another 7,750 dunums (1,937 acres). Six of the villages, with approximately 1,000 residents, will be completely trapped between the Wall and the 1967 Green Line; isolating them from the West Bank and effectively annexing them to Israel without being granted citizenship or legal rights. Land, which is the base of the economic lifeline of this area, is being taken away as it’s people watch helplessly. more

 Wall chokes Palestinian hopes 
Ray Hanania in the Orlando Sentinel - Why is Israel building a barrier in an age when walls are being torn down? Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says it’s to prevent terrorism. But that’s not the real story. Sharon’s wall does three things: confiscates more Palestinian land, gives Israel control over all of the West Bank’s water, and imprisons Palestinians in an archipelago of ghettos intended to prompt Palestinians to “flee.” more

 Hell walking on earth 
Mustafa Barghouti in the Al-Ahram Weekly - The disastrous cycle of violence gripping Israel and Palestine receives plentiful news coverage. Largely unreported however, are the more insidious aspects of the conflict. Israel has committed a litany of atrocities during its occupation of Palestine, but the crimes visited daily upon the innocent civilians of Rafah are among the most heinous. Even in the wider context of the occupation as a whole, Rafah’s situation is particularly tragic, and the conditions imposed on its citizens increasingly desperate. There can be no doubt that Israeli policy in Rafah amounts to a process of ethnic cleansing, and, as has been so often the case throughout history, a humanitarian catastrophe is being allowed to continue unimpeded. The world sits idly by. more

 UN Study: Palestinian Women Hard Hit by Israeli Occupation 
Thalif Deen for the Inter Press Service Agency (IPS) - Israel’s repressive policies in military-occupied West Bank and Gaza have had a devastating impact on the lives of Palestinian women and children, a new U.N. study says. And only an end to Israel’s occupation of the territories will reverse that trend, add experts interviewed by IPS. “The capacity of Palestinian women to cope with this new situation has been declining, and the number of women dependent on emergency assistance, particularly food assistance, has risen,” the report said. more

 Pursuing the Millennium: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel 
David Hirst in The Nation - In the minds of many Westerners, Muslim fundamentalism has replaced communism as perhaps the greatest single “threat” to the existing world order. From this perspective the Palestinian intifada becomes just another episode in a “clash of civilizations.” For them, there is an intrinsic link between Palestinian “terrorism” and, say, the al-Qaeda bombing of an American warship off Yemen. Almost totally absent from such arguments is any inclination to examine Jewish fundamentalism, or so much as to ask whether it, too, might be a factor in the conflict over Palestine, one of the reasons why it seems so insoluble. more

 Love and Marriage in Israel: Palestinian and Non-Orthodox Israelis Need Not Apply
Suraya Dadoo in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - In February of last year, Gili and Sagi, a young Israeli couple, were “married” at sea—a marriage not legally recognized by the State of Israel. Although both are Jewish, the couple objected to the only marriage option open to them in Israel: an Orthodox Jewish ceremony. Instead, they chose a marriage contract they drew up together with a lawyer, thus rendering their union illegal. On the other side of the divide, Aneesa, an Arab Israeli who holds a Jerusalem ID, married a Jordanian three years ago. “Because he also carries a Gaza identity card, he is not allowed in Jerusalem,” said Aneesa. “Forget getting his own Jerusalem ID—he is not even allowed to visit here.” She cannot remember the last time she saw her husband. more

 No Exit
Israeli journalist Uri Blau in Harper’s Magazine - Uri Blau: What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “territories”?
Roi [nineteen, paratrooper, serving in Hebron for the past six months]: The first thing that comes to my mind is children throwing Molotov cocktails. Basically, you should shoot them in the legs and you don’t.
Tzvi [twenty, serving in the Gaza Strip]: My first memory is of security patrol. You see unbelievable things there: people sitting under the bulldozers, begging us not to demolish their houses. There’s a guy who lives in a tent where his house stood once, and now this tent is on ground that has been annexed by the settlement. But there are stories much worse than this. Real pogroms. Angry settlers coming out with sticks and pitchforks and burning down houses. Just like that. more

 Rising Malnutrition Among Palestinians 
UN News Service in Human Rights Education Associates - The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) today warned of rising hunger and malnutrition among Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – a situation the agency blamed largely on Israeli polices and practices. more

 Birth and Death at the Checkpoint
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy in Ha’aretz - Rula was in the last stages of labor. Daoud says the soldiers at the checkpoint wouldn’t let them through, so his wife hid behind a concrete block and gave birth on the ground. A few minutes later, the baby girl died. more

 “You Belong in the Past”
Gabriel Ash in Yellow Times - An American columnist compares and contrasts life in Mas’ha, a Palestinian village, and in Elkana, an Israeli settlement, recently constructed on confiscated Palestinian land, and investigates the effect of the separation barrier Israel is building through the entire West Bank on these two communities. more

 The Separation Barrier
Nigel Parry in The Electronic Intifada - Israel’s Separation Barrier, dubbed the “Apartheid Wall” or “Berlin Wall” by Palestinians, has increasingly attracted international media attention, largely due to the hard-to-ignore scale of the project. The most obvious historical parallel to the barrier is the Berlin Wall, which was 96 miles long (155 kilometers). Israel’s barrier, still under construction, is expected to reach at least 403 miles in length (650 kilometers). The average height of the Berlin Wall was 11.8 feet (3.6 metres), compared with the maximum* current height of Israel’s Wall — 25 feet (8 metres). more

 Palestinians run ‘popular schools’ to get around Israeli curfew 
Mohammed Daraghmeh - The children of the Al Qasr neighborhood dodge Israeli military patrols on the way to class in a cramped dorm room. They sit on chairs brought from home or crouch on mattresses. Their teachers have no textbooks, only a blackboard. The “popular school” in Al Qasr is one of several that have sprung up in mosques, empty factories and apartments in Nablus, the West Bank’s largest city, since Israel first imposed a round-the-clock curfew June 21 to prevent Palestinian militants from attacking Israeli civilians. more

 The Violence of Curfew
Sam Bahour - A Palestinian-American businessman living with his wife and children in the Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank describes life under curfew and how Israel is systematically destroying Palestinian livelihood, and with it, any hopes for a future reconciliation between the two peoples. more

 Living with the Holocaust
Senior Research Scholar Sara Roy - Some Israeli soldiers standing nearby went up to the old man and stopped him. One soldier went over to the donkey and pried open its mouth. “Old man,” he asked, “why are your donkey’s teeth so yellow? Why aren’t they white? Don’t you brush your donkey’s teeth?” The old Palestinian was mortified, the little boy visibly upset. The soldier repeated his question, yelling this time, while the other soldiers laughed. The child began to cry and the old man just stood there silently, humiliated. This scene repeated itself while a crowd gathered. The soldier then ordered the old man to stand behind the donkey and demanded that the he kiss the animal’s behind. At first, the old man refused but as the soldier screamed at him and his grandson became hysterical, he bent down and did it. The soldiers laughed and walked away. They had achieved their goal: to humiliate him and those around him. We all stood there in silence, ashamed to look at each other, hearing nothing but the uncontrollable sobs of the little boy. The old man did not move for what seemed a very long time. He just stood there, demeaned and destroyed. more