Israel Pirating in Palestinian waters

Though you wouldn’t know it from the lack of media coverage, for decades Israel has been committing acts of piracy in Palestinian waters: Attacking, kidnapping and stealing from Palestinian fishers, sometimes just a mile off the Gaza Strip’s coast.

Despite pledges of restraint, the Israeli navy’s attacks have continued since the November 2012 ceasefire between Israeli authorities and the Palestinian resistance. The Mezan Centre for Human Rights noted on March 24, 2013, that “Since the ceasefire agreement, Israeli occupying forces have carried out 44 attacks against fishermen in Gaza’s waters, injuring four fishermen. Israeli forces arrested 44 fishermen, confiscated nine boats, and damaged fishing equipment on five separate occasions.”

FULL ARTICLE AT RT.COM

Palestinian Arab Idol finalist says Issawi an inspiration

(Ma’an News) — Muhammad Assaf, a Palestinian finalist in the TV singing contest Arab Idol, says he is inspired by long-term hunger striker Samer Issawi and would trade winning the competition for the prisoner’s freedom.

“I am conveying Palestine’s message to the world, and if I had to choose between winning the Arab Idol title and the freedom of Samer Issawi, I would choose freedom for the Palestinian hero whose steadfastness is peerless and I can’t compare myself to it,” Assaf told Ma’an.

Speaking from Beirut, the singer from Gaza City said that he considers himself an “ambassador of Palestinian art,” who wants to convey a positive image of Palestinians, despite Israeli occupation and oppression.

Arab audiences are happy to see a Palestinian singing different genres of music rather than just patriotic songs, he said, adding that he has been receiving support from his fans in the Arab world.

Assaf says he has been moved by the plight of Palestinian prisoners, especially Samer Issawi who has been on hunger strike in Israeli detention for 265 days.

“Issawi has provided a model in the struggle which is too great to be imitated by artists, despite the fact that art has an element of resistance as it can deliver the message of a people under occupation to the whole world.”

“I can’t differentiate between my art and my patriotic attitude,” he added.

Assaf qualified on Friday for the final of MBC’s popular singing competition Arab Idol.

Gaza Palestine’s rising Arab Idol star

Vanessa Beeley writes from Gaza on Mohamed Assaf, a talented and inspiring Palestinian from Gaza:

“Two days ago Mousheera Jammal and I went to Palestine University to talk to Lecturers and fellow students who know Palestine’s rising Arab Idol star…Mohamed Assaf.

Mohamed has been setting the stage alight and bewitching the Arab Idol judges with his depth of soul and soaring vocals. Ragheb Allama described Mohamed as “a rocket that was heading for the stars, the Arab Idol is born”. Nanci Ajram ” you are incredible, my vote is already cast!”.

Talking to those who know him at his University in Gaza, we understood why.

Mohamed is described, without exception, as an unassuming, humble student who has endured great hardship in Gaza without complaint. His voice has been his escape from the day to day survival in Khan Younis refugee camp where his family would have experienced regular incursions and attacks from the Israeli forces permanently camped at the border fences.

Suffocating Under Siege, Gaza Welcomes Tourism

First Published at Inter Press Services –by Eva Bartlett

(IPS) – “We wanted to help foreigners in Gaza, so we created an English map of Gaza City,” says Amir Shurrab, one of the minds behind the foldable Gaza Tourist Map.

At the time a lecturer for the University College of Applied Sciences (UCAS), Shurrab led a team of Geographic Information System (GIS) professionals and students in mapping Gaza City street by street in 2009. “GIS drawing is usually aided by satellites, but the Israeli occupation authorities prevented us from using the nearest satellite,” says Shurrab. “So we used one further away.

“We also wanted to share Gaza’s beauty and culture, to show a different face from what is seen in the media,” says Shurrab, referring to the images of Palestinians maimed and killed by Israeli bombings and shootings.

The map, also available on the Internet, is a cheery rendition of Gaza City’s highlights, and also optimistically depicts fishing boats in Gaza’s sea, an irony for Palestinian fishers daily targeted with shooting, shelling and abductions by the occupying Israeli navy.

Israeli Siege on Gaza Causes Waste Crisis

A United Nations truck removes waste from a Gaza refugee camp.     Photo by Emad Badwan

First Published at Inter Press Services (IPS)- By Eva Bartlett

“For the past five years we’ve collected garbage by traditional means: donkey and cart,” says Abdel Rahem Abulkumboz, director of health and environment at the Municipality of Gaza. The municipality of Gaza alone produces 700 tons of waste daily, Kumboz says. More than half of this waste is collected daily by 250 donkey carts.

“It’s a means of doing the job, but not an optimal one,” says Kumboz.

Among the growing problems facing waste management throughout the Gaza Strip, even this simple solution nearly came to an end this month.

“The funding allotted to garbage collectors finished at the end of February,” says Kumboz, noting that it is not slated to resume until June at the earliest.

Hamada al-Bayari from the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that the emergency response came recently after the intervention of Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), an Italian aid group. Bayari says that COOPI provided the funding for the waste collection to continue until the already-slated June funding begins.

One potential disaster avoided, the Gaza Strip’s waste management problem nonetheless remains near crisis point.

The most critical issues include overflowing landfills, non-functioning collection vehicles, waste site toxins leaking into the groundwater, and no means of hazardous waste disposal.

Gaza’s Ark: Trade, Not Aid

Palestinian fishers are hit hard by the Israeli blockade on Gaza. Credit: Emad Badwan/IPS.

First Published at IPS – By Eva Bartlett

*blog version longer than published version

“An ark is literally a large floating vessel designed to keep its passengers and cargo safe,” say the group preparing ‘Gaza’s Ark’. But their ark, they say, is “a vessel that embodies hope that the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip can soon live in peace without the threat of the Israeli blockade.”

An initiative by Palestinians in Gaza and international solidarity activists, Gaza’s Ark entails “purchasing a run-down boat from a local fishing family,” says Michael Coleman, a member of Free Gaza Australia and on the Gaza’s Ark steering committee.

“The refurbishing will be done by Palestinians in the port of Gaza, and the sailing will be with a mixed crew of Palestinians and internationals,” says David Heap, spokesperson for Gaza’s Ark in Canada and Europe. The sailing date has not been announced yet.

Pointing to a weathered fishing trawler with a ‘for sale’ sign painted on it, Mahfouz Kabariti, president of Gaza’s Fishing and Marine Sports Association, points to fishers’ poverty.

“Why sell?” he asks. “Because of years of poor incomes from Israeli restrictions on sea, many fishers have debts they cannot pay off. Fishers were optimistic when the Israelis re-extended the fishing limit six miles. We hoped that maybe it would be extended to 12 miles.”

The Ark initiative includes exporting a token amount of trade goods from Palestinian artisans, an act which Coleman admits is “symbolic” but necessary.

sabr

I asked Emad to talk about sabr, patience, as the cactus and the noun are essential to life in Gaza.

He replied, somewhat cheekily and with the usual Palestinian dry humour:

“Illi bedo e3esh fi Falesteen o buzzpt fi Gaza lazem yspoor o yokel saber min Gaza. Gher hek, ma begder y3esh fe Gaza.“

If you want to live in Palestine, especially Gaza, you must be patient (yspoor) and eat Gazan cactus fruit (sabr) If not, you won’t make it in Gaza.

Arabic expressions never quite translate into English as the original. Being told to eat cactus fruit actually isn’t as painful or insulting as one might think.  Although stoney and not overly sweet, the fruit is pleasant in its own way, once peeled of its spines.

Gaza abounds with cactus plants, many varieties, but the most common is the broad, flat-stemmed plant that lines roads and is traditionally used as a natural wall between plots.

When I visited Abu Taima land in southeastern Gaza three years ago, Mohammed, a teen, told me the cacti take five years to mature. Like Zionist-bulldozed olive and citrus trees, cacti are sorely missed for the years it takes them to re-grow.

A month later I re-visited after the village elder from the same Abu Taima family called me to tell me the Zionists had just bulldozed his land, once again plowing his crops, including cacti, under the earth.