August 2011

August 22nd

Gaza pays the price
... again Palestinians in Gaza share their reactions to the recent Israeli attacks with Al Jazeera. 

By Mohammed Omer

After several Israeli soldiers were killed near Eilat, Israeli airstrikes hit the Gaza Strip in retaliation, killing several civilians [GALLO/GETTY]

The ongoing deadly Israeli air strikes on Gaza, and the exchange of home-made rockets fired from Gaza, has drawn mixed reactions from Palestinians in the besieged Gaza.

First, seven Israelis were killed in two attacks on buses in southern Israel, according to Israeli medics.
The attacks began when gunmen fired at an Israeli bus that was traveling near the Egyptian border.
Palestinians deny any involvement in the attack.

Then, Israel blamed Gaza's Popular Resistance Committees for the attack and retaliated with Israeli missiles killing 15 Palestinians, with 55 injured, including 12 women, 15 children, three elderly and one ambulance worker.  

On Saturday, Israeli sources said one Israeli was killed and about a dozen injured in southern Israel in a barrage of Palestinian home-made rockets fired from Gaza.
The deadly attacks have gotten little international reaction, but regional reactions from the Arab League have condemned the attack on Gaza and called for an immediate stop to the attacks and military operations against Gaza. However, the Jordanian government, through Abduallah Abu Rumman, condemned Israel for its "military escalation and operations in Gaza that have killed civilians as well as Egyptian officers", urging an immediate halt to the strikes in order to avoid regional instability.

Yaser Othman, the Egyptian representative to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, said that Cairo was "in contact with all parties to restore the truce in Gaza".

Al Jazeera asked a number of Palestinians in Gaza Strip for their reactions to the ongoing attacks on Gaza.
This is what they said: 

Ahmed Al Najjar, 27-year-old documentary film producer:
I see these attacks as the first Israeli nail in the coffin of our bid for UN state recognition in September.
What is happening in Gaza right now is a message from Israel to the world that no political force can impose anything on Israel, including the US administration.
All in all, what we are going through, from violations of rights, is the accumulation of international silence since the birth of our plight until today's Israeli bombing.
Moreover, on the timing of the Israel attacks, everyone notes that Israel is targeting us, a civil population, even in the holy month of fasting and worshipping ... this brings Israel's claim of religious sanctity and rituals into question.
Kholoud Al Massri, 23-year-old university graduate:
I think in such a situation of frequent Israeli attacks on Gaza, firing rockets towards Israel seems to be our only means of resistance, when the rest of the world has abandoned us to face the illegal occupation alone.
Amina Oudeh, 61-year-old housewife:
I think Egypt will succeed in restoring the truce and end the blood-shed, and this will be at the cost of the Egyptian soldiers murdered by the Israelis.
However, Israel has always been looking for trouble, and today's attack adds to the ominous image of the occupation.
Sahar Salem, 24-year-old labourer:
If an Israeli is killed on the moon, Israel would attack Gaza for revenge. By continuous terror attacks on neighbours, Israel thinks it can bring peace to its people, but in fact it only brings more hatred toward them.
As for the home-made rockets fired on Israel, that is meaningless, because they hit the poor, marginalised areas of Israel that the government of Israel doesn't care about. I hate that the poor and marginalised everywhere are always the less fortunate and the most likely to suffer.
Hisham Jaber Abdelhadi, 37-year-old unemployed labourer:
I see how the lack of international reaction could be taken as encouragement for Israel to go on. However, one gets tired of sending appeals to the world. The world is busy with Syria and Libya and in Gaza we only have God to watch over us. 
Moayyad Abu Imran, 34-year-old engineer:
I think this time, Israel is not aiming to kill for the sake of killing, but for more. Two main reasons: first, to thwart the Palestinians' application for statehood on September. And secondly, for Netanyahu to export his internal economic crises and failure in dealing with the Tel Aviv protests.
Now, protesters are home, and Netanyahu's goal has been achieved: to split the protesters by making them do their military call-up.
Wafa Yussef, 29-year-old public health employee:
I think what is happening now is the expected result since Israel was looking for a way out of its internal crisis, and an effort to prevent Palestine from declaring itself as a country at the UN in Septmember. So the Gaza Strip, as usual, has to pay the price.
As regards the Arab League: as Palestinians we are not used to expecting too much from the Arab League, but I think this time we should expect more from the Arab peoples to support us, and not just our leaders.

August 11th

In Prison, and Denied Education

Gaza women demonstrate to demand release of their loved ones in prison in Israel.  Credit:Mohammed Omer/IPS. Buy this picture

GAZA CITY, Aug 11, 2011 (IPS) - Access to education for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is getting worse as international organisations remain unwilling or unable to intervene. Secondary- school students here completed their exams in June, and received their results by end of July. However, the 1,800 Palestinian prisoners who were supposed to complete their exams were not permitted to do so by the Israeli Prison Service.

In the early morning hours, Fatima Abu Jayyab, mother of Palestinian prisoner Eyad Khalid Abu Jayyab, gets ready for morning prayers. For the past nine years, every Monday morning this 57-year-old mother has stood outside the International Red Cross Committee (ICRC) office in Gaza City with a poster displaying her son. The Israeli authorities have prevented her from seeing him for the last five years. 

Israeli authorities imprisoned Eyad Khalid Abu Jayyab for what Fatima calls affiliation to a political party. "I think of him every moment," she told IPS. 

"I have lost faith in the International Red Cross. They are not doing what a neutral organisation should be doing to meet the needs of prisoners in conflict areas," she says. 

Fatima’s worries have increased since hearing about her son’s hunger strike. "There is nothing that I can do to stop him from doing this. I can’t get to him." 

Palestinian Authority (PA) Major General Tawfiq Al Tirawi issued a press release last week, following the release of 770 Palestinian prisoners, stating: "The Israeli occupation has launched an unusual and unprecedented war against the prisoners." Having spoken to the released prisoners Al Tirawi accused Israel of barring the prisoners from applying for their exams, continuing their university studies or obtaining medical care. 

Last June, angry families of Palestinian prisoners in Gaza City pelted the ICRC building with eggs. The protest came following a statement from the ICRC demanding Hamas provide evidence that the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is still alive five years after his capture. "The total absence of information concerning Mr. Shalit is completely unacceptable," ICRC Director-General Yvest Daccord told the press. 

Saber Abu Karsh, spokesman for Wa'ed, a Gaza-based organisation defending Palestinian prisoners said, "The ICRC statements are illegal and inhuman. Israel has been preventing 750 Gaza prisoners from family visits for five years now." 

Abu Karsh adds, "There are 1,500 prisoners, including 36 female prisoners and 350 children in need of health care which is denied them. The ICRC needs to mention, just once, about the 7,000 Palestinian prisoners, and should intervene to ensure that medicine, food parcels, clothes and blankets get to the prisoners." 

Hamas, however, has declined to answer the request of ICRC, according to Ismail Radwan, the movement’s spokesman in Gaza. In October 2009, Hamas released a short video of Shalit, in exchange for the release of 20 Palestinian women. 

PA Minister of Prisoners and Ex-Detainees Issa Qaraqi slammed Israel’s decision of not allowing prisoners to complete their scholastic exams inside the Israeli prisons. "There has been no justification given for the denial of education," Qaraqi told IPS. 

"The Israeli Prison Service agreed recently to conduct the high secondary-school exams for all prisoners according to commitments and procedures whereby the ministry of prisoners, and ministry of education and higher education, conduct the exams in a transparent manner," Qaraqi said 

This year 88,768 students took their secondary school exams across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The prisoners however, were excluded for the third year - since 2009. 

In 2009, Qaraqi appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice to reverse the decision not to allow the exams. "This session has been postponed and has not been discussed ever since," Qaraqi said. 

According to the ministry of prisoners and ex-detainees in Ramallah, Abu Jayyab, currently imprisoned in Negev prison, is one of the 1,800 Palestinian prisoners who have been denied access to secondary- school exams. 

"The security prisoners are held by law in Israel Prison Service facilities," Lieutenant-Colonel Ian H. Domnitz told IPS. He refused to comment further. "We don’t deal with such matters through the media," he said. 

Qaraqi himself in his official capacity as minister of prisoners has never been allowed to visit the prisoners, or to observe their conditions. 

Maria Cecilia Goin, ICRC spokesperson in Jerusalem, acknowledges the problem. "We are aware about the situation that they cannot complete their high secondary-school exams and we are following it with the Israeli prison authorities." 

However, the ICRC maintains a dialogue with Israeli authorities "which is bilateral and confidential," Goin told IPS. "Our recommendations regarding this problem or any other detention issue are discussed only with the authorities and thus, we do not share publicly the content of this dialogue." 

In March 2010, imprisoned Fatah official Marwan Barghouti managed to complete his doctorate in political science. The University of Cairo and the Arab Academy for Research had accepted Barghouti in 1999 - three years before he was arrested by Israel. Qaraqi, said that Barghouti’s success was due to "personal efforts and study in secret" without facilitation from his jailers. 

The Israel Prison Service had earlier allowed some Palestinian prisoners to enrol in the Open University of Israel. This is no longer the case, according to the Ministry of Prisoners. (END)