Middle East

NOVANEWS   By Heather Sharp  BBC News, Gaza  Ten young men sit talking and smoking by the light of a paraffin lamp in a basement room. The flags of militant groups - Hamas, Islamic Jihad - flutter outside among the densely packed cinder-block houses of Gaza's Jabaliya refugee camp. The area is a key haunt of the factions behind the rocket attacks that Israel's recent assault on Gaza was aimed at ending. Its frustrated, mainly unemployed youths are prime recruitment targets for the militants. But as the young men, sitting in coats in the unheated room, mull over Israel's 22-day operation, despair is as common a theme as revenge. About half of the group say they have been members of armed groups at some point. Others now say they want to join. “ I hope an earthquake flattens this place ”  Ji...

NOVANEWS News Briefing Al Mezan Publishes a List of Palestinians Killed by the IOF during the Israeli "Cast Lead" Operation in Gaza   On 7 March 2009, Al Mezan published a list of Palestinians killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) during their military operation "Cast Lead" against the Gaza Strip, from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009.   The list included the names of 1342 people killed, including: 109 women (8% of the total rate of deaths); 318 children (24%); 127 elderly people (9%); 235 fighters - including 27 persons who were assassinated while unarmed and uninvolved in fighting activities (therefore the rate of those fighters, excluding those unarmed is 16%) - and 210 (16%) policemen and security apparatus members who were killed while performing their regular duties and we...

NOVANEWS   GAZA CITY, 5 March 2009 (IRIN) - Mohammed Abu Shabah, aged 22, lies in al-Wafa rehabilitation centre in northern Gaza, paralyzed from the waist down after a missile fired by an Israeli drone on 11 January left pieces of shrapnel near his spine. Doctors at the centre, Gaza’s only rehabilitation hospital, fear removing them could lead to complete paralysis.  “I was just walking down the street,” said Abu Shabah, recounting the incident near his home in Rafah. He was eventually sent to al-Ma’dee military hospital in Cairo for emergency care.  He needs, his doctors say, a vasotrain machine to improve blood circulation to his limbs and a urodynamic machine to measure bladder capacity, but both machines are currently unavailable in Gaza.  “They were destroyed by Israeli tank fire on 1...

NOVANEWS    Reem Salahi writing from the United States, Live from Palestine, 3 March 2009   Muhammad Shurrab holds pictures of his son Kassab (left) and Ibrahim, killed during Israel's siege of Gaza. (Reem Salahi) Having returned from Gaza, I am trying to come to terms with what I saw, what I heard and honestly, what I don't think I will ever understand -- the justification. While Israel's recent offensive has been the most egregious of any historical attack upon the Palestinians in Gaza, it is just that, one of many. Gaza has been under Israeli bombardment and sanctions for decades. Prior to the Israeli pullout in 2005, Gaza was under complete Israeli control and occupation. Nearly 8,000 Israeli settlers occupied 40 percent of Gaza while the 1.5 million Palestinians occupied...

NOVANEWS Dear All,   Will be away and returning on the 20th, and probably will take a day or two before I get back to work again.    We have a family affair in Vienna—a book party.  A cousin wrote a book in German about his mother, who survived the entire war in Vienna working as a registered nurse in a hospital, notwithstanding that she was Jewish.  I did not know that such things occurred.  Apparently there was a shortage of nurses.   The book consists almost entirely of her letters—and I can’t help when reading her pathetic writings (they have been translated into English) thinking of how horrible experiences are common alike to Jews and Palestinians and others.  Suffering from inhumane treatment is not the property of any single group.  When I read personal experiences of slaves, as in...

NOVANEWS Didi Remez    December 12, 2010   Categories: Diplomacy | URL: http://wp.me/pHlQV-L2   Dimona nuclear reactor Dome Like most of the world, Israel is facing a major energy crisis. Our population is growing and per-capita energy consumption is on the rise. Nuclear energy is emerging as the solution favored by the government, as reported in a December 8 2010 Maariv feature [full translation at the bottom of this post]: Israel’s efforts to build a nuclear power plant are the result of a report prepared by a large international energy company, which was submitted to the Infrastructure Ministry.  The report states that a nuclear plant is the best solution, given the energy situation in Israel -- both in economic terms and in terms of ensuring Israel’s energy supply. According t...

NOVANEWS   I also want to hype my friend Tilde de Wandel’s new website for her pho­to­jour­nal­ism in Gaza. Very, very good. A few samples:   December 11th, 2010    Wikileaks and arms sales I think what has been most telling in the Wikileaks release has not been so much what has been released—which has been nothing sub­stan­tively new, and in a moment when there is a torrent of infor­ma­tion available, over­whelm­ing to activists—but instead what the analysis of the infor­ma­tion reveals about the analysts. The lunatics assume that Julian Assange is a CIA-plant, a Zionist operative, a stooge, a villain, a triple-agent, or whatever else their over-heated yet under-cooked imag­i­na­tions come up with. Busy looking for sub­ter­ranean, baroque con­spir­a­cies, they refuse to see the co...

NOVANEWS LETTER FROM GAZA DURING THE ZIO=NAZI HOLOCAUST Dear , Good morning , we managed to rent generator for one hour and I entered to send you this email The pink photo is taken by sister mobile four month ago in our friend wedding, the other is an old one taken by one of my colleges when we were in a collective trip, the last one I was just three year old .   thx for being with me all the time ,it means a lot for me I do appreciate your efforts   Eman emo o    

NOVANEWS LETTER FROM WARSAW GHETTO 'GAZA' DURING THE ZIO=NAZI HOLOCAUST  Good morning dear 14,JANUARY 2009  Sabah el khair , I wish you have a good sleep ,I still don't know how I could thx you for your continuous support ,but plz don't be so worry coz we are all okay .I know that the situation is getting worth but Allah Karim. I miss talking to you and the children ,plz send them my best regard and kiss from me. we just managed to bring a line of our neighbour generator so we could Pump Water and charge our Mobiles .  I wish you a good show today and If we have electricity I will hear it off course . good Luck dear but I know you don't need luck coz you are so good and Allah with you .  plz pray for all of us  best wishes and regards   Note : I sent u copy of my ID and Passport ,just in c...

NOVANEWS People of Gaza remain under siege and largely ignored Exclusive photos from Sydney Wikileaks rally The Left and the Right in Australia are (mostly) united behind Wikileaks This is what online civil disobedience looks like Australia’s Channel 10 TV News on Sydney Wikileaks protest Scahill on why Washington and Obama are earning hatred around Islamic world Al Jazeera covers Sydney Wikileaks solidarity event US government doesn’t quite get the internet part 8622 US wonders; how can we find way to get Iraq to kill our men and start war? So many Jews are AWOL on Palestinian rights   People of Gaza remain under siege and largely ignored   Posted: 11 Dec 2010 04:56 AM PST Life is anything but normal in the Gaza Strip: Air strikes by Israeli warplanes at dawn on Thur...