Madison Rafah Journal

Israeli and foreign peace activists protest in Tel Aviv

AFP, January 2, 2010

TEL AVIV — Hundreds of Israeli pacifists, both Arabs and Jews, marched in central Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest against the blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip.

The demonstrators — estimated at more than 1,000 by organisers of the march — chanted slogans urging "liberty and justice for Gaza" as they marked the first anniversary of Israel's war on Gaza.

They called for the lifting of the blockade on the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave and accused Israel of carrying out "war crimes" in the territory.

On December 27, 2008 Israel launched a massive offensive against Gaza in a bid to halt Palestinian rocket and mortar fire. About 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the 22-day conflict.

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Illustration From "Footnotes in Gaza"

‘They Planted Hatred in Our Hearts’

PATRICK COCKBURN, The New York Times, December 27, 2009

FOOTNOTES IN GAZA
Written and illustrated by Joe Sacco
418 pp. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company. $29.95

Joe Sacco’s gripping, important book about two long-forgotten mass killings of Palestinians in Gaza stands out as one of the few contemporary works on the Israeli-Palestinian struggle likely to outlive the era in which they were written.

Sacco will find readers for “Footnotes in Gaza” far into the future because of the unique format and style of his comic-book narrative. He stands alone as a reporter-cartoonist because his ability to tell a story through his art is combined with investigative reporting of the highest quality.

His subject in this case is two massacres that happened more than half a century ago, stirred up little international attention and were forgotten outside the immediate circle of the victims. The killings took place during the Suez crisis of 1956, when the Israeli Army swept into the Gaza Strip, the great majority of whose inhabitants were Palestinian refugees. According to figures from the United Nations, 275 Palestinians were killed in the town of Khan Younis at the southern end of the strip on Nov. 3, and 111 died in Rafah, a few miles away on the Egyptian border, during a Nov. 12 operation by Israeli troops. Israel insisted that the Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces were still facing armed resistance. The Palestinians said all resistance had ceased by then.

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Palestinian girls in Rafah after Israel's 22-day offensive, July 2009. (AFP/File/Said Khatib)

Agence France Presse, Dec 23, 2009

GENEVA – A UN human rights expert on Wednesday condemned a "tragic failure" by major powers to end Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip or probe alleged war crimes committed during a military offensive one year ago.

The UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, urged Israel's European and North American allies to press for the immediate end of the blockade "backed up by a credible threat of economic sanctions."

"There is no evidence of meaningful international pressure being brought to bear to end the blockade or to ensure that Israeli and Hamas officials are held accountable for alleged war crimes perpetrated during the Gaza attacks," he said in a statement.

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The Erez crossing, where people from Gaza cross into Israel for medical treatment. Many say they have been pressed to become informants. Photograph: AP

Rory McCarthy, The Guardian, 6 December 2009

Israeli security agents held a Palestinian patient for three weeks without charge, interrogated him repeatedly and offered access to hospital care if he agreed to become an informant, the Guardian has learned.

The treatment of Abd al-Karim al-Atal, 28, is the latest in a series of cases over the past two years in which patients from Gaza referred for hospital treatment in Israel have been held without charge and pressed to become Israeli collaborators, human rights groups say.

Atal, who is losing his sight, is still waiting for a permit to travel from his home in the Jabaliya refugee camp, in Gaza, to an eye hospital in east Jerusalem for a cornea transplant operation now scheduled for tomorrow.

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Ahmed Abu Salama is a teenage boy from Gaza who was severely injured in an Israeli attack over one year ago.

Thanks to the efforts of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) Ahmed and his mother Karima arrived in Madison on Sunday May 24th, safely and on time for medical treatment donated by American Family Children's Hospital. Their journey from Gaza to Madison took two weeks, with the biggest challenge of getting from Gaza to Egypt going relatively smoothly.

An enthusiastic group of a dozen people greeted Ahmed and Karima at the airport. For the first week, Ahmed and Karima stayed with a volunteer host family. Since then, Karima has stayed at the Ronald McDonald House while Ahmed has been at Children's Hospital. If all goes well Ahmed will move into Ronald McDonald House with his mother later this week while receiving outpatient care at the hospital.

Ahmed was scheduled to have cranial reconstruction surgery on June 10th, but due to complications from other injuries it was postponed until June 16. The surgery went well, although Ahmed is still in the hospital and is being treated for an earlier foot infection. It is hoped that he will soon be discharged to return for outpatient treatment and therapy. At this time, we do not know the exact length of Ahmed's stay, but it is estimated to be 3 to 7 more weeks.

There have been many community volunteers who have helped Ahmed and Karima feel at home in Madison. Ahmed and Karima have also benefitted from the generosity of the doctors and staff at Children's Hospital and at the Ronald McDonald House. In the next few weeks, everyone will be working together to make Ahmed and Karima's experience here a very good one and to see that Ahmed's treatment is a success.

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Photographs taken during broadcasts of President Obama's speech at Cairo University in Egypt on Thursday.

The New York Times, June 7, 2009

Cairo. Photo: Amr Nabil/Associated Press

Manama, Bahrain. Photo: Hasan Jamali/Associated Press

Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: Hussein Malla/Associated Press

Calcutta. Photo: Sucheta Das/Associated Press

Baghdad. Photo: Mohammed Jalil/European Pressphoto Agency

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