Articles on the Impact of the Conflict on Family Life in Palestine and Israel

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

 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

 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

  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

 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

 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

 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

 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

 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

 “Just Another Occupation Story” 
IWPS House Report No. 79 - The story is of the family of Hassan Sa’id (or Abu ‘Attaf) and his wife Rawda (or Um ‘Attaf) and their family of 12. Hassan and Rawda have 10 children, three boys and seven girls, and live in two rooms. The small room is 9’x10’ and the large one is only slightly larger. The family owns no refrigerator, and no phone (neither cell nor land line). They own one fan. The furniture in the big room consists of some plastic school type chairs. The small room functions as a kind of storage space with two large storage bins covered by blankets – it was not clear what was behind the blankets, but from the looks of the place, there was not much of value. Hassan works as the guard for the local trash dump, and makes 1000 NIS per month. That is the equivalent of a little over $200. With this he feeds his family of 12. 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

 A Moment that Changed my Life 
IMEMC - On April 22, 1991, I was only 18 years old; I was out with some of my comrades planning to conduct a march and rally in the streets of our town, Beit Sahour, against the Israeli occupation of our land. This march was one of many peaceful protests held as part of what had become known as the ‘first Intifada’ (popular uprising), which had begun in 1987. more

 The Boy Who Kissed the Soldier: Balata Camp 
Starhawk - “What source can you believe in order to create peace there?” a friend writes when I come back from Palestine. I have no answer, only this story:
June 1, 2002: I am in Balata refugee camp in occupied Palestine, where the Israeli Defense Forces have rounded up four thousand men, leaving the camp to women and children. The men have offered no resistance, no battle. 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

 Hope for the Future: An Interview with Amal Jadou 
IWPS - Amal is a 31-year-old refugee from Aida Camp, Bethlehem. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in the U.S. She was recently hosted by the government of Japan, as a recipient of their Young Leadership Prize. She hopes to be elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council. Read More | Watch in RealPlayer | Download for Windows Media Player

 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

 Two Homes Occupied: Two Families Humiliated 
Larry (ISM) - On 13 January 2005, a reporter friend of ours rang. He had been told that Israeli army jeeps had driven through Idhna (a small town to the north-west of our apartment in Hebron, southern Palestine) and announced a sudden curfew. Two years ago when there was armed resistance in this area, anybody out of his or her house during curfew risked being shot on sight by the army. Nowadays things are quieter and the main punishment for breaking curfew is immediate arrest and detainment without charge. more

 Another Faceless Crime 
Jonson (ISM) in Palestine - When I look back upon my experience staying in a house that was set for demolition I only think of the kind eyed father crippled by Israeli fire two years ago, the mother numb from the loss of her son, periodically asking tentative questions in Arabic and the friend sitting opposite us in the newly rented family house staring incessantly at the wall, thinking of past times with his young friend, in between handing us glasses of coke, an atmosphere of loss hung over our uncomfortable conversation. more

 Ethnic Cleansing and the Art of Camouflage 
Paul Larudee (ISM) in Palestine - If you want to fully understand the wall that Israel has built, I advise you to start at the beginning, where its first sections were erected nearly two years ago on land belonging to the villages of Pharaon and Irtah, on the edge of the city of Tulkarem. The living room of Fayez Odah in Irtah offers an excellent view of the 25-foot-high monolith, which has eaten 60% of his land. He and his wife Mona and five children are also in danger of being arrested or fired upon every time they try to farm the remaining 40%, because it is in the “security zone” next to the wall. The structure is even more imposing for being on a raised section of ground, with a sort of ditch in front of it. 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

 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

 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

 Mabrook, Ala’a 
Dianne Roe (CPT) in Hebron, West Bank - In mid-July students all over Palestine get the results of the tawjihi, the final examination of their senior year. Celebrations abound for those who pass. Friends and family visit the successful graduates to say “Mabrook!” (Congratulations). Dianne Roe met Ala’a Al Ja’abari, one such graduate, last week and sends him this note of congratulations. 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

 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

 Children, Artists Paint Mural on Apartheid Wall at Mas’ha 
IWPS in Mas’ha, West Bank - For almost nine months, Maisa, Assia, Ishak, Nidal, and Shaad have looked out their front door to see an 8-meter grey wall where their village used to be. On Sunday, the children worked with muralists from San Francisco’s Break the Silence Mural Project to transform their view into one of hope and freedom. Where dark concrete loomed, a yellow bird now soars from a lush green valley dotted with red flowers. Read Report | Watch Video in Realplayer | Watch Video in Widows Media Player

 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

 5-Year-Old Girl Injured by Israeli Tank Fire 
Phyllis (ISM) in Tulkarm, West Bank - This afternoon, Jaafar Tibi, a teacher at Dhanabbi School was driving his three young daughters home. 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

 Those who are defeated by violence will become obsessed by it
Maia Williams (CPT), Azariyya, West Bank - For more than half of each week, I live in Azariyya, a West Bank town a couple of miles outside of Jerusalem. I leave from Azariyya to Jerusalem by walking up a steep path, passing taxis and vans constipating the road. Then I arrive at the slabs of rock, standing vertically, one next to the other, and stare at the soldiers dressed in green cloth and jaunty hats posturing with their guns, joking with one another, sitting in their jeeps to avoid the hot noon day sun, and yelling at the Palestinian taxi drivers as the taxi drivers yell at the passersby to fill their vehicles. This is the place where the wall touches me and I touch the wall. more

 The Way to School
Andrew (ISM) Jenin, Palestine - I am standing about 10 meters from the settler road (Israeli only) and roadblock that divides the western part of the village of Abaa and the city of Jenin from the eastern part of the village. Ahead of us on the far side of the road looms the grey concrete of an Israeli army tower. The tower dominates the area where the Palestinian road to eastern Abaa becomes subsumed by the settler road and a series of trenches, concrete and razor wire obstacles. 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

 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

 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

 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

 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

 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

Being a Target
Alison Weir (Independent Journey to Palestine, prior to founding If Americans Knew) - I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but I was sort of shot at yesterday. I say “sort of” because I don’t think the Israeli soldiers in their tower were trying to hit me, or the people with me... if that had been their purpose I have no doubt that they would have. There is massive evidence here that their aim is quite good. I think they were simply asserting their power. And I think they were trying to intimidate me, as a foreigner, into leaving the area. more

Life in a Palestinian Refugee Camp
Grace Halsell in Journey to Jerusalem - Entering the refugee camp, I feel I am entering some medieval ghetto. I walk along a narrow alleyway, skirting an open sewage ditch. I pass tens of dozens of one- and two-room houses, each leaning on the other for support. I am in a ghetto without streets, sidewalks, gardens, patios, trees, flowers, plazas, or shops—among an uprooted, stateless, scattered people who, like the Jews before them, are in a tragic diaspora. I pass scores of small children, the third generation of Palestinians born in the ghetto that has almost as long a history as the state of Israel itself. Someone has said that for every Jew who was brought in to create a new state, a Palestinian Arab was uprooted and left homeless. more