e began our last editorial with these words: “The Israeli assault on Gaza has left many of us angry and sick at heart.” Our last front cover depicted the horrible wounds of a Gazan teenager. The photograph was taken by a Totnes peace activist (in Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement), who wrote our front page story, and sent us the accompanying image. This picture left some readers feeling angry and sick.
One letter from an experienced activist said: “I did not need the…
As Israel commits brutal war crimes in Gaza, it also continues to covet the land of Palestinians living in the West Bank. The 790km-long apartheid wall snakes through the occupied West Bank annexing Palestinian land to Israel.
Israel is also progressing with the annexation of the entire eastern section of the West Bank, known as the Jordan Valley, the most fertile region of the West Bank, which constitutes a further 28.5% of the land inside the 1967 green line.
Israel already…
Over the past month or so, in the wake of Israel’s brutal bombardment of Gaza, the UK’s student population has witnessed a widespread political awakening. Campus occupations or sit-ins have been staged at some 20 universities around the country, by hundreds if not thousands of students, demanding action to help the people of Gaza and an end to the complicity of UK educational institutions in Israel’s crimes.
On the evening of 28 January, around 200 students had just finished…
Visiting the West Bank in 2003, one young Palestinian girl, above all others, touched my heart. This was Hiba, in the Aida refugee camp, who dreamed an impossible dream: she wanted to be a nurse. No income was coming into her home, so college fees were totally out of the question.
When I came back to Glasgow, I helped to found the Glasgow Palestine Human Rights Campaign (GPHRC), a grass roots solidarity campaign to support Palestinian students.
As a result of the GPHRC’s…
Edinburgh, Glasgow and Strathclyde students ended occupations, after winning demands to fund scholarships, disinvest from military industries and boycott Israeli companies including Eden Springs water. These actions were part of a wave of over 20 student occupations across Britain.
Edinburgh students started their action on 10 February, just as the Glasgow occupation finished, and were able to end their occupation of the University’s George Square Theatre on 16 February.
On…
Over 700 people from around the UK have now signed up to support the Gaza Freedom March. Timed to coincide with the first anniversary of Israel’s brutal 22-day assault, this will involve hundreds of internationals marching nonviolently alongside the people of Gaza on 1 January 2010, breaching the illegal Israeli blockade (see PN 2513).
PN is organising a training for people intending to go on the march. Assuming sufficient demand, this will take place in London on the weekend of 31…
Khoza’a is a small rural community in the south of the Gaza Strip which endured a brutal incursion by Israeli ground forces on 13 January, indicative of so many attacks elsewhere in Gaza during the three weeks of “Operation Cast Lead”.
Heavy missile strikes preceded the ground offensive, which destroyed 50 homes and razed farmland. Homes with families inside them were attacked by military D-9 bulldozers .
A group of women and children carrying white flags attempted to leave…
The Free Gaza Movement was formed in 2008 by a coalition of Palestine solidarity activists and organisations, including various Christian, Jewish, and Muslim groups. Their mission is to break the siege of Gaza, raise international awareness of the devastating effects of the Israeli-imposed closure, and pressure the international community to review its support of the Israeli government.
The Free Gaza Movement has broken the siege five times in dramatic and highly publicised boat…
The Israel assault on Gaza has left many of us angry and sick at heart. The glaring injustice of the conflict is reflected in the wildly disproportionate casualty figures. The government of Israel says it was motivated by fear of Palestinian rockets and mortars.
From November 2001 to November 2008, precisely 23 people were killed inside Israel by Qassam rockets (15) and by mortars (8) fired from Gaza (not all by Hamas), according to the pro-Israeli-government group The Israel…
In line with a lot of the mainstream media coverage on both sides of the Atlantic, the New York Times editorial on 30 December argued: “Hamas must bear responsibility for ending a six-month cease-fire this month with a barrage of rocket attacks into Israeli territory.”
However, this not only contradicted earlier reportage by Israeli newspapers (including Ha’aretz and Yediot Ahronot) and Amnesty International, but also that of the NYT itself: on 12 November, the paper reported that: “…
19 January 2009: Dr Atallah, a physician in Gaza, invited us to meet him in his home in Gaza City, just a few blocks away from the Shifaa Hospital.
Early this morning, he and his family returned to their home after having fled five days earlier when the bombing attacks on Gaza City had become so fierce that they feared for their lives.
“Believe me, when I would drive from the hospital to the place where my family was staying, I prayed all the way,” said Dr Atallah, “…
Twelve British companies produce components, many of them essential, for the F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters that attacked Palestinians in the Gaza Strip last month, according to the Stop Arming Israel website.
Several of these UK-based companies produce critical parts used in the Apache aircraft. Among these are Agusta Westland in Yeovil and Redmayne in Hampshire (“Jesus nuts”), Senior Aerospace Baxter Woodhouse & Taylor (air duct systems) and Meggitt Avionics (air…
One of the most powerful lies of the current Palestinian crisis is the claim that “there is no partner for peace” – and that Hamas in particular is an irreconcilable fundamentalist force of destruction. The reality, successfully suppressed throughout the British media, is that Hamas has long offered a long-term truce with Israel on the basis of the 1967 borders.
In other words, Hamas (while pursuing many other objectionable policies) has for many years been in close proximity to…
Gaza desperately needs aid, but more than that it needs Israel to lift the near-total closure of Gaza’s borders, according to aid experts. Palestinian estimates of the cost of the first fortnight of the Israeli assault range from $976m to $1.7bn.
Even before the latest attack, Gaza was reeling from the effects of the Israeli blockade. Unemployment was nearly 50%, almost all of Gaza’s 3,900 manufacturers had been forced to shut down, 80% of drinking water was substandard,…
The new crimes that the US and Israel have been committing in Gaza in the past weeks do not fit easily into any standard category – except for the category of familiarity. Literally, the crimes fall under the official US government definition of “terrorism,” but that designation does not capture their enormity. They cannot be called “aggression,” because they are being conducted in occupied territory, as the US tacitly concedes.
In their comprehensive scholarly history of Israeli…
