On Friday, August 26, Iyad Hamed was shot by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Silwad. The initial military report, echoed by Israeli journalists, seemed like standard fare. “A terrorist fired a weapon at a pillbox post in Ofra. Nobody was hurt. The …
Read MoreMore Murder, Arrests and Torture: Israeli Response to Uprising in Palestine
Waleed was freezing. He was wearing only a thin t-shirt, and it was a cold March night earlier this year in his village of Awerta, which lies just outside Nablus in the northern half of the West Bank. The soldiers had come for him at …
Read MoreEthnic Cleansing in Palestine: Home Demolitions on the Rise
According to the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, an Israeli NGO, the Israeli government has demolished 28,000 Palestinian structures since the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began in 1967, resulting in the homelessness and suffering of untold numbers of people. There is little …
Read MoreThe Hares Boys: Israeli Justice in Palestine
On November 26 five Palestinian teenagers were sentenced to fifteen years in prison and fined roughly $40,000 each. This is not an unusual occurrence. Examples of Palestinians being punished for crimes they did not commit abound, but in this case the Israeli authorities have taken …
Read MoreShatila: Remembering the Massacre
“There is one scene I will always remember. There was one child. The mother died, but he was trying to take milk from his mother. He was still alive.” Jamili’s face betrays little emotion as she recalls the scene from thirty-three years ago. She has …
Read MoreStruggling to Survive in a Palestinian Refugee Camp in Southern Lebanon
Manar Mohamed begins to cry before I have even asked my first question. She turns to look at her daughter, who is sitting next to her on one of the mattresses that constitute the only furniture of the apartment. At first glance, Farah looks like …
Read MoreFrom Yarmouk to Shatila: an Odyssey of Misery
There are places whose names have become synonymous with the tragedies that have taken place there. It is impossible to think of Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Srebrenica, or My Lai without conjuring up images of atomic bombs or concentration camps or massacres. Another such place is Shatila, …
Read MoreCamp Life: Daily Struggles in Shatila
“Two weeks ago my five-year-old cousin was shot in the eye and killed.” Amal Mohamed’s face betrays no emotion as she explains what happened. “They celebrated with gunfire, and one of the bullets came down and hit him in the head.” Twenty-two years old, Amal …
Read MoreAn Activist’s Last Day in Hebron
Anti-Arab slogans were not new to me. “Tomorrow there is no school in Gaza; there are no children left”, had been chanted during the recent Gaza massacre by angry fascist mobs in Tel Aviv. I had seen “Gas the Arabs” spray painted in black letters …
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