Karam and Adam, twin Palestinian babies born after their mother underwent IFV treatment using sperm smuggled out of the Israeli prison where their father has been held for the last 11 years. Credit: Silvia Boarini/IPS

By Silvia Boarini
GAZA CITY, Jul 31 2015 (IPS)

Thirteen-year-old Hula Khadoura sits on a large sofa in her grandfather’s home in the neighbourhood of Tuffah, Gaza City, her one-year-old twin brothers Karam and Adam on her lap. “I am so happy they arrived,” she beams, holding the babies’ feeding bottles in her hands.

There is an aura of mystery and something of the miraculous around the  twins’ births – their father, Saleh Khadoura, has spent the past 11 years in an Israeli prison and has had no physical contact with Hula’s mother, Bushra, since then.

Hula hears people refer to her brothers as ‘special babies’ but does not fully grasp what the fuss is about. She is completely unaware of the unusual obstacles her father’s sperm had to overcome to reach her mother’s eggs.“After the suffering I am put through with each visit [to her husband in an Israeli prison], with the searches and the humiliation, with this pregnancy, with Karam and Adam, I wanted to show that rules can be broken” – Bushra Abu Saafi

Freedom ambassadors

Bushra Abu Saafi, is one of around 30 Palestinian women who have conceived babies since 2013 with sperm smuggled out of the Israeli prisons in which their husbands are being held. She was only the second woman in Gaza to do this. Before her, two had tried but only one succeeded.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ NGO Addameer, there are currently some 5,750 Palestinian political prisoners being held in Israel. Of these, roughly 5,550 are adult males.

Women whose husbands are serving decades-long sentences do not want to see their dream of starting a family, or increasing its size, taken away by the very same authorities that took away their husbands.

Until recently, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) was highly sceptical that sperm smuggling could be happening at all. Spokesperson Sivan Weizman told the press that tight security made it very unlikely. Recently, though, they have acknowledged that it may be an issue.

The Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the other hand, have never shown any doubt and have financially supported women wishing to try this very unconventional method of conceiving.

In May in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners even organised a collective birthday party for the little ‘ambassadors of freedom’, as babies born this way are often called.

Families apart

“It was my husband who suggested we try ‘in vitro fertilisation’ (IVF) treatment with his smuggled sperm,” Bushra Abu Saafi told IPS from her father’s apartment, where she lives with her five children.

The majority of Palestinian households have at least one relative in an Israeli prison. For a people under occupation, political prisoners become part of the collective identity, they are adopted by Palestinians as long lost brothers, sisters, mothers or fathers and are celebrated at Prisoners’ Day marches and recurring demonstrations.

In the private sphere, the prisoners continue to be individuals and occupy prominent places in the home. Their handicrafts are displayed with pride, their photos adorn each room and the vacuum they have left is still palpable.

A flowery picture frame with a photo of her smiling husband Saleh in his twenties sits on a side table in Bushra’s living room. He was arrested at the age of 23, accused of being part of the Islamic Jihad. They had been married for five years and only two of their children have had the privilege of spending some time with him as a family.

When Saleh was imprisoned, Bushra was pregnant with Ahmed. “It hasn’t been easy these past 11 years,” she told IPS.  “We miss him terribly, my son Ahmad especially. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘father’. He tells me ‘when I grow up I want to be like grandad’.”

Smuggling new life out of jail

Entering a fourth pregnancy was something Bushra did not take lightly and her father worried about the extra pressure. “When Saleh proposed this to me from prison, I was sceptical,” she confessed. “My family and I worried about what people would say. Imagine, pregnant with a husband in jail!”

She need not have worried. The advice she was given, like other women undergoing IVF in this way, was to tell everyone in her family and village that her husband’s sperm had been brought out and would be used for insemination. Since then, local media stations have helped spread the story and both Palestinian society and local religious authorities have been highly supportive.

“In the end, my father saw that it was my desire to try for another baby and eventually supported my choice,” Bushra said. It took two months and many tests before she could be ready for the operation.

Although the women do not wish to discuss how the sperm is smuggled past Israeli security and out of prison, it is acknowledged that it may be slipped into the clothes of  unaware children.

While wives talk to imprisoned husbands through glass and over a phone, children are the only ones allowed physical contact at the end of a visit. The clinics performing the operation,  both in Gaza and in the West Bank, report that sperm has arrived in a variety of improvised containers, from sweet wrappers to eye drop bottles.

“The preparation, the waiting, it was all very tough,” said Bushra. “But when the news came that I was pregnant, the pressure was off and we finally celebrated.” The double surprise came later, when she was told that twins were expected.

She describes the steps leading to this pregnancy as being about resistance and overcoming challenges. “After the suffering I am put through with each visit, with the searches and the humiliation, with this pregnancy, with Karam and Adam, I wanted to show that rules can be broken.”

Fertility and non-violent resistance

According to Liv Hansson, a Danish public health specialist who has researched fertility in Palestine, the practice of sperm smuggling only makes associations between fertility and resistance easier to draw.

“In a context such as Palestine, where women are well educated and child mortality is low, a lower fertility rate would be expected according to classic demography,” Hansson told IPS. The fertility rate of 4.1 registered in Palestine between 2011 and 2013, then, must be seen in the light of Israel’s ongoing occupation.

Indeed, fertility has long been considered by Palestinians as part of resistance efforts against Israel’s military occupation. For its part, Israel views high fertility rates in the West Bank and Gaza, and in majority Palestinian areas inside Israel, as a very real threat. Talk of the ‘demographic time-bomb’ – the time when Palestinians will outnumber Jewish Israelis – is very common.

“Former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat famously stated that ‘the wombs of Palestinian women are the greatest weapon of Palestine’,” Hansson told IPS. “Fertility is seen as something of interest not only to the family but to the community, society at large and to politicians too.”

The wait

Bushra and her five children will have to wait three more years to be reunited as a family with Saleh. Since 2012, following the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Shalit, Israel’s Prison Service has been slowly reinstating visiting rights for family and prisoners from Gaza.

Ahmed saw his father two years ago for the first time, Hula six months ago and for the twins, the only meeting so far has been through the photograph on the side table, portraying Saleh as a young man eager to live life.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Azzum Atme checkpoint border crossing from the West Bank into Israel, where hundreds of Palestinian labourers cross into Israel each day using Israeli buses. These labourers already face long delays at the checkpoint and if they are banned from Israeli buses their trips will take even longer. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, May 24 2015 (IPS)

A  decision by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to segregate buses in the occupied West Bank has backfired after causing an uproar in Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, and political damage on the international stage.

This came as Israel faces mounting international criticism over its land expropriation and settlement building in the West Bank, and other forms of discrimination levelled against Palestinians.

Israel’s new extreme right-wing government is also being attacked on the domestic front with liberal Israelis, and Israeli NGOs involved in human rights, accusing the government of damaging Israel’s image and values.“The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner and the threat of economic sanctions on Israel is a language the Israeli government understands far more than empty threats from the Americans who never followed any criticism of the Israeli government with any action” – Prof Samir Awad, political scientist at Birzeit University

Israeli settlers in the West Bank have been waging a campaign to prohibit Palestinians, particularly labourers who work in Israel, from using their buses in the occupied West Bank for over a year, saying that they represented a security threat, refused to give up their seats for Israelis and expressed sexual interest in Israeli women.

Last week, approval was given for buses to be segregated but after the backlash the plan was quickly scrapped.

However, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon quickly denied that segregation or racism had anything to do with the issue and that the decision to ban Palestinians from Israeli buses had only been based on “security” needs.

Neither has Ya’alon given up on the plan. He intends to instruct the IDF to come up with a new plan to cover all 13 crossing points from the West Bank into Israel.

This development came simultaneously as European Union foreign policy head Federica Mogherini paid a 24-hour visit May 20-21 to Jerusalem and Ramallah in an effort to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward, stating that Europe wanted to play a more prominent role in the process.

But behind Mogherini’s visit was growing approval within the European Union for more pressure to be exerted on Israel to stop expropriating land from the Palestinians to build more illegal Israeli settlements and enlarge current ones.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry was on the defensive following its perception of bias from the European Union.

“The Israeli government will not be pressured by the European Union into making any concessions with the Palestinians in regards to the peace process,” said a spokesman from Israel’s Foreign Ministry – who insisted on remaining anonymous due to “ongoing problems at the ministry”.

“If the EU exerts one-sided pressure on Israel, without putting any pressure on the Palestinians, the situation will backfire because it will allow the Palestinians to avoid direct negotiations with us at the negotiating table,” the spokesman told IPS.

“Any future peace negotiations will have to involve face to face talks between the Palestinians and us. We will accept nothing less.”

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, quoting a mediaeval biblical scholar, instructed all Israeli diplomats not to apologise for Israel’s occupation, stating that “all of the land (meaning East Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories) belonged to Israel.

As Israel finds itself painted into a corner politically, Palestinian and Israeli analysts have been debating whether there would be any European pressure on Israel and whether that pressure would have any effect.

Political scientist Prof Samir Awad from Birzeit University, near Ramallah, believes that the European Union will be able to successfully pressure the Israeli government, despite its extremism.

“The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner and the threat of economic sanctions on Israel is a language the Israeli government understands far more than empty threats from the Americans who never followed any criticism of the Israeli government with any action,” Awad told IPS.

“EU pressure on Israel will also be buoyed by the fact that a number of EU countries have officially recognised a Palestinian state while others have recognised a state in principle and are critical of Israel’s continued occupation and land expropriation in the West Bank,” added Awad.

However, political analyst Benedetta Berti, a research fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, is not convinced that the European Union will succeed in pushing Israel to any negotiating table.

“If we look at their record so far there has been a lot of rhetoric but not much actual action. So far, 16 out of the 28 EU ministers have told Mogherini to go ahead with labelling settlement goods exported to Europe,” Berti told IPS.

“It hasn’t happened yet as they have to get 20 of the 28 EU ministers on board for that and due to the divisions in the EU over Israel I’m not sure that it will happen in the near future,” explained Berti.

Meanwhile, an Israeli rights group has accused the Israeli authorities of being indifferent to attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers and security forces.

“Most cases of violent crimes against Palestinians not only go unpunished – but often are completely ignored by the authorities. Even when criminal investigations against soldiers accused of such offences are opened, they almost always fail,” said Yesh Din, a volunteer organisation working to defend the human rights of Palestinian civilians under Israeli occupation.

The groups said that approximately 94 percent of criminal investigations launched by the IDF against soldiers suspected of criminal violent activity against Palestinians, and their property, are closed without any indictments. In the rare cases that indictments are served, conviction leads to very light sentencing.

“Moreover, Palestinians who attempt to file complaints about crimes committed against them face staggering obstacles in their way. The complete absence of military police stations open to the Palestinian public in the West Bank, for example, makes it literally impossible for Palestinians to file complaints directly with the military police,” stated Yesh Din.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Unarmed Palestinian confronts Israeli soldiers during protest near Jelazon refugee camp, north of Ramallah, West Bank. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Mar 17 2015 (IPS)

As soon as the truck carrying Israeli dairy products entered Ramallah’s city centre it was surrounded by Palestinian activists who proceeded to remove and trash almost 20,000 dollars’ worth of mainly milk and yoghurt.

The driver of the truck, a Palestinian from the nearby Qalandia refugee camp, and an Israeli employee fainted after watching helplessly.

The goods, already paid for by Palestinian shopkeepers, were smashed up and stomped on before they were spread all over the street in front of the Palestinian police stationed at the traffic circle.

Activists from the Palestinian Authority (PA)-affiliated Fatah movement are behind a boycott of Israeli goods throughout the West Bank.“The strength of the grassroots organisations’ action against Israel is not going to go away anytime soon and will only continue to grow in strength internationally” – Professor Samir Awad of Birzeit University

The boycott follows the withholding by Israel of millions of Palestinian tax dollars in retaliation for the PA advancing plans to take Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged Gaza war crimes and abuses in the West Bank.

“We have entered the second phase of the campaign which is confiscating and damaging these goods,” said Abdullah Kamal, who is the leader of the campaign.

Several weeks earlier, the campaign had involved Kamal and his associates making the rounds of shops in Ramallah and ordering shopkeepers to rid their stores of Israeli produce and being warned not to purchase any more. Similar moves are under way in other cities of the occupied West Bank.

Although the Palestinian territories are not a huge part of Israel’s domestic market, the move is part of a number of grassroots campaigns of defiance by Palestinians against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its siege of Gaza.

“The local boycott by Palestinians is peaceful and a way of exerting some pressure on Israel even if it not very strong,” Professor Samir Awad, a political scientist from Birzeit University near Ramallah, told IPS

“The least Palestinians can do is not finance the occupation.”

A more serious development, from Israel’s point of view, was a recent vote by the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) executive committee in favour of discontinuing security coordination with Israel’s intelligence and security services.

Palestinians have long accused the PA of being Israel’s sub-contractor to the occupation and the Israelis rely on this security coordination to prevent another Palestinian uprising and control armed resistance.

A final decision on breaking off security coordination lies with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

“The situation on the ground is getting serious and it is possible that Abbas could make this decision before the end of the month,” Fatah member Murad Shitawi told IPS.

“We will not accept the continuing occupation with its economic and security implications,” said Shitawi, who is the coordinator of protests in the northern West Bank village of Kafr Qaddoum, and who was recently released from an Israeli jail.

Every Friday, dozens of villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza take part in protests against Israel’s expropriation of Palestinian land and the occupation despite the huge toll this has taken on Palestinians in terms of the number wounded and killed.

Shitawi pointed out that four or five years ago there were only a few villages taking part in regular protests on a weekly basis.

“Now there are many and the protests are not limited to Friday.”

Another act of Palestinian defiance has been the repeated building of protest tents and villages in Area C of the West Bank, 60 percent of the territory, in protest against Israel’s forced removal of Bedouins and other Palestinians who have lived there for centuries.

Israel has designated Area C off limits to Palestinians and exclusively for Israeli settlers, which is illegal under international law.

One of these protest camps near the village of Abu Dis, just outside Jerusalem, has been rebuilt 10 times after Israeli security forces rased it, confiscated equipment and arrested and assaulted activists who had encamped there.

Furthermore, Palestinian grassroots activists are also working in conjunction with their international supporters, and with Israeli peace groups, to up the pressure on Israel as the international Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign continues to strengthen.

A growing number of global businesses, church and university groups and artists are either refusing to visit Israel, do business with Israeli companies involved in the West Bank, or are boycotting Israeli institutions operating abroad.

Israel Apartheid Week, “an international series of events that seeks to raise awareness about Israel’s apartheid policies towards the Palestinians and to build support for the growing BDS campaign” was held in a number of capitals across the globe during March.

Israeli peaceniks and grassroots activists have been among some of the most vocal critics of their government’s policies towards the Palestinians, spawning a number of organisations which take part in the weekly protests.

Groups such as Ta’ayush, Breaking the Silence, Ir Amim and Rabbis for Human Rights seek to educate people about the realities of life under occupation.

Some of them also accompany Palestinian farmers trying to cultivate their land under continued settler harassment.

“The strength of the grassroots organisations’ action against Israel is not going to go away anytime soon and will only continue to grow in strength internationally,” Awad told IPS.

“The PA will also continue with its plans to take Israel to the ICC and should Israel continue to withhold Palestinian tax money indefinitely, the PA could collapse and the result would be chaos.” (END/2015)

Edited by Phil Harris

Sahar Baker (left), with Ahed Baker (right) and sister-in-law in front of their beach camp house, with photographs of the four cousins killed by Israeli gunboats in summer 2014 while playing football on the beach in Gaza. Credit: Khaled Alashqar/IPS

By Khaled Alashqar
GAZA CITY, Mar 3 2015 (IPS)

“I have lost all meaning in life after the death of my child, I will never forgive anyone who caused the tearing apart of his little body.  I appeal to all who can help and stand with us to achieve justice and punish those who killed my child.”

As the tears rolled down her cheeks and with a rattle in her voice, 47-year-old Sahar Baker recalled the last moments of her ten-year-old son Ismail, who was killed along with three of his cousins after being targeted by Israeli gunboats while they were playing football on the beach during the Israeli attacks on Gaza last summer."We will not forget how our children were killed in cold blood without any reason. We hope that the Israeli army commanders will be tried before international justice and that they will be punished for the killing of the children" – Ahed Baker

Sahar’s plea for justice may soon be one step nearer now that the Palestine Government is set to formally join the International Criminal Court (ICC), which deals with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty, on Dec. 31, after the U.N. Security Council rejected a Palestinian attempt to set a deadline for Israel to end its occupation of territories it captured in 1967. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said the Palestinians will formally join the ICC on Apr. 1.

Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), is reported as having said that a first complaint will be filed against Israel at the ICC on Apr. 1 over the Israeli war against Gaza last year and Israeli settlement activity.

Palestinian membership of the ICC “provides an opportunity to raise the issues on Israel’s use of force based on occupation and crimes against the people and the land in Palestine, where we did not have the capacity before to sue Israel for its crimes against the Palestinians,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki told the press during a visit to Brazil to attend the inauguration ceremony of President Dilma Rousseff at the beginning of January.

The Baker family, who live in a beach camp in Gaza, is now hoping that Palestinian membership of the ICC will open the door for the prosecution of Israeli leaders and army officers for their crimes.

Sahar’s cousin Ahed Baker, father of Zakaria (10) and grandfather of Ahed Atif (9), shares her pain and bitterness. He is still looking for a way to bring the Israeli army to trial for the murder of his son and grandson, another two of the four young cousins killed on the beach. He told IPS that he and his family would do everything possible to ensure that their case makes its way to the ICC.

Sahar Baker holds a photograph of her ten-year-old son Ismail, killed along with three of his cousins during the Israeli attacks on Gaza in summer 2014. Credit: Khaled Alashqar/IPS

“We will not forget how our children were killed in cold blood without any reason,” said Ahed. “We hope that the Israeli army commanders will be tried before international justice and that they will be punished for the killing of the children.”

Palestinian leaders have long waved the card of membership of the ICC as a form of pressure on the Israeli government in their attempt to secure a Palestinian state.

However, apart from its political and legal benefits, Palestinian membership of the international court has created some serious implications for the Palestinians.

Israel has already frozen the transfer to the Palestinian Authority of tax funds owed to it. These funds are generally allocated for the salaries of Palestinian public employees and government operating expenses in Gaza and the West Bank, and the freeze is hampering the functioning of the Palestinian Unity Government and undermine the already weak public sector in Palestine.

Israel has also indicated that further ‘punitive’ steps will be taken soon against the Palestinians as a result of joining the ICC. Membership of the ICC thus appears to be the start of a new lengthy battle for Palestinians.

Some Palestinian human rights centres, including the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights in Gaza City, are now working against the clock to compile documentation on the numerous cases of civilians who were killed during last summer’s Israeli war against Gaza, to be able to submit all the documents required for the ICC to investigate war crimes in Gaza and hold Israel accountable.

“Over the long years of occupation, there has been no equity for civilian victims and this, in my point of view, was a key reason that Israel waged three wars in less than five years. In fact, it has been due to the absence of justice and a sense that occupation is immune to accountability,” Issam Younis, Director of the Al Mezan Centre told IPS.

“Going to the ICC will bring justice to victims through international justice and ensure that there are no repeated offences of occupation without accountability,” he said.

According to Palestinian human rights advocates, membership of the ICC carries two overlapping purposes for Palestinian people and their leaders.

For the Palestinian people, of Gaza in particular, it not only opens an important door to achieving justice but also helps to criminalise the entire Israeli occupation establishment and its vicious atrocities against humanity.

For the Palestinian leadership, on the other hand, it seeks to strengthen the political, legal and diplomatic status of Palestine at the international level and pressure Israel to accept the creation of an independent Palestinian state in future negotiations.

What underpins the two goals is a historical desire for real justice and protection. Whether the ICC can deliver, only time will tell.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Palestinian families take shelter at an UNRWA school in Gaza City, after evacuating their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, July 2014. UNRWA has now launched a humanitarian reconstruction programme. Credit: Shareef Sarhan/UNRWA Archives

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Sep 17 2014 (IPS)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has launched an ambitious recovery plan for Gaza following the 50-day devastating war between Hamas and Israel which has left the coastal territory decimated.

However, the successful implementation of this plan requires enormous international funding as well as a long-term ceasefire to enable the lifting of the joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the territory.

“We are working on a 24-month plan aimed at 70 percent of Gaza’s population who are refugees but this will only be possible if the blockade is lifted and construction materials and other goods are allowed into Gaza,” Chris Gunness, spokesman for the UN Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA), told IPS.

“Taxpayers are being asked once again to fund the reconstruction of Gaza and at this point there are no security guarantees, so a permanent ceasefire is essential if we are not to return to the repetitive cycle of destruction and then reconstruction,” Gunness said.“If Gaza is to recover and Gazans are to have any hope for the future, it is vital that the international community intervenes to help those Gazan civilians who have and continue to pay the highest price” – Chris Gunness, UNRWA spokesman

The attack on Gaza, euphemistically code-named “Operation Protective Edge” by the Israelis, now stands as the most severe military campaign against Gaza since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967.

“The devastation caused this time is unprecedented in recent memory. Parts of Gaza resemble an earthquake zone with 29 km of damaged infrastructure,” said Gunness.

Following the ceasefire, the Palestinian death toll stood at 2,130 and more than 11,000 injured.

Over 18,000 housing units were destroyed, four hospitals and five clinics were closed due to severe damage, while 17 of Gaza’s 32 hospitals and 45 of 97 its primary health clinics were substantially damaged. Reconstruction is estimated to cost over 7 billion dollars.

According to UNRWA, 22 schools were completely destroyed and 118 damaged during Israeli bombardments, while many higher education facilities were damaged.

Some 110,000 displaced Gazans remain in UN emergency shelters or with host families, according to UNRWA.

The reconstruction of shelters alone will cost over 380 million dollars, 270 million of which relates to Palestinian refugees.

According to the Palestinian Federation of Industries, 419 businesses and workshops were damaged, with 129 completely destroyed.

“We have a two-year plan in place which addresses the spectrum of Palestinian needs. Currently we have 300 engineers on the ground in Gaza assessing reconstruction needs,” Gunness told IPS.

Palestinian boy inspecting the remains of a house which was destroyed during an air strike in Central Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, July 2014. Credit: Shareef Sarhan/UNRWA Archives

UNRWA’s strategic approach has been divided into the relief period, the early recovery period and the recovery period of up to four months following the cessation of hostilities.

“The relief period, which will continue for the next four months, involves urgent humanitarian intervention including providing shelter, food and medical needs for displaced Gazans,” said the UNTWA spokesman.

“The early recovery period will continue for the next year and will address the critical needs of the population such as repairing damage to environmental infrastructure, restoring UNRWA facilities and supplementary assistance for livelihood provisioning.

“The recovery period will last for two years and will focus on the impact of the conflict through a sustainable livelihoods programme promoting self-sufficiency and completing the transition of UNRWA emergency and extended-stay shelters back to intended use and full operational capacity.”

One thrust of UNRWA’s programme will focus on protection, gender and disability. The increased numbers of female-headed households and households with disabled men is having an impact on unemployment patterns.

“Women are the primary caregivers and are closely linked to homes and the psychological trauma being exhibited by children. Furthermore, there have already been signs of increased gender-based violence,” explained Gunness.

“We want to focus on raising awareness of domestic violence, how to deal with violence in the home and building healthy and equal relationships through our gender empowerment programme.”

The UN agency will also address food distribution by providing minimum caloric requirements through basic food commodities, including bread, corned beef or tuna, dairy products and fresh vegetables. Non-food items provided include hygiene kits and water tanks for 42,000 families.

Emergency repairs to shelters are also being undertaken with 70 percent more homes destroyed or damaged than during the 2008-2009 hostilities. Emergency cash assistance for refugee families to meet a range of basic needs is also being distributed.

“Due to the enormous damage done to hospitals and health facilities, UNRWA has so far established 22 health points to provide basic health services to the sick and wounded, and health teams have been deployed to monitor key health issues,” noted Gunness.

The psychological impact of the war is another area that concerns UNRWA.  “There isn’t a person in Gaza who hasn’t been affected by the war. In consultation with UNRWA’s Community Health Programme, we have hired additional counsellors and youth coordinators who will provide a range of services to groups and individuals.”

“If Gaza is to recover and Gazans are to have any hope for the future,” said Gunness, “it is vital that the international community intervenes to help those Gazan civilians who have and continue to pay the highest price.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

“Strong together, we love Israel and trust the army” banner in Jerusalem. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

By Pierre Klochendler
JERUSALEM, Aug 7 2014 (IPS)

“Strong together, we love Israel and trust the army” – while a tentative truce takes root, banners adorned with the national colours still dominate cities and highways across the country.

Calling for unquestioned patriotism and solidarity, the embrace is a bear hug in the minds of those who question the merits and morality of Israel’s latest onslaught on Gaza.

It is tough to subscribe to the credo of peace when nationalist emotions are exacerbated by plaintive sirens and the deafening sound of Iron Dome missiles slamming incoming rockets, when rational judgment is mobilised for the war effort and crushes rational assessment of the effect of war.

War is the antithesis of peace is a tautology. Challenged by war, Israeli peace activists grapple with dilemma.... ordinary Israelis took refuge in the safety net of their emotions, seeking comfort in national anxiety, pronouncing moral judgment on the “sanctimonious” critics at home who contest the axiomatic assertion proclaimed time and again that “the Israel Defence Forces is the world’s most moral army”

A war, when launched, must be won. Yet this war results neither in victory nor defeat, is not a war to end all wars, but a war to avoid the next war by means of deterrence, maybe. In war, there is only loss, and losers, peace activists reckon.

If war will not have solved the conflict – it contains the seeds of the next round of violence – peace will, they assert.

But when the cannons roar, peace is silenced.

Stressing that there is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Peace NGO Forum called for a ceasefire and a resumption of the negotiations towards a two-state solution on Day 22 of the operation.

The Peace NGO Forum is an umbrella platform for Jewish and Palestinian civil society organisations dedicated to peace within a two-state solution to the conflict. The partner organisations, which include the women’s peace coalition Bat Shalom and the Combatants for Peace movement, partake in networking, capacity-building and joint demonstrations,

The belated statement generated by the Israeli wing of the forum exposed the dilemma: “Israelis reserve the right to self-defence and deserve to live in security and peace, without the threat of rockets fired at them and enemy tunnels dug into their midst.”

And so, at its height, the war was justified, enjoying quasi-consensual approval ratings among Jewish Israelis. Social media brimmed with racist, intimidating, “Kill Arabs”, “Kill leftists” comments.

“No more deaths!” On Day 19 of the operation, 5,000 Israelis joined a rally organised by pro-peace civil society organisations. The emblematic Peace Now movement was absent, as was the liberal Meretz party. The protestors dispersed after rockets were fired at the Tel Aviv metropolis.

Succumbing willingly to the 24 hours a day news coverage on TV, ordinary Israelis took refuge in the safety net of their emotions, seeking comfort in national anxiety, pronouncing moral judgment on the “sanctimonious” critics at home who contest the axiomatic assertion proclaimed time and again that “the Israel Defence Forces is the world’s most moral army”.

Left-wing Israelis counter that self-righteousness is intrinsic in such proclamation.

“How can you not identify with our national pain when we’re under threat” is a blame often levelled by right-wingers against fellow Israeli peace activists.

The Israeli public which, in its overwhelming majority, is at the centre and right of the political spectrum, charges that the country is falling victim to ‘victimology’, the victim-focused coverage of the conflict.

Supporters of the peace movement see respect for “human rights as our last line of defence”, as Amnesty International director Yonatan Gher put it in the liberal daily Haaretz on Wednesday. They object to the disproportionate reaction of the military. Israel must understand the weakness inherent in its own military might, they suggest.

The mainstream’s assumption is that peace activists too often give in to ‘the mother of all tautologies’ – that “war is hell” and “evil” and, in essence, a war crime. Any sign of soul searching that this war is not just is resented as vacillation and unwanted self-flagellation.

Peace activists hold Israel’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories as the source of evil.

The 47-year occupation, most Israelis argue, reduces their predicament to a simplistic imagery, because the occupation does not justify the hatred of Israel professed by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, and the repetitive cycle of violence. The occupation continues because peace is unattainable, they stress.

“Try,” retort peace activists, “We’ve proven enough that we’re strong enough to take a risk for peace.”

Israelis have been stuck in this perennial debate for 14 years.

During this time, they have experienced a flurry of conflicts with no end in sight: the 2000-2005 Palestinian Intifadah uprising, the 2006 Lebanon war against Hezbollah, onslaughts on Hamas in Gaza in 2006 (“Summer Rains”), 2008-2009 (“Cast Lead”), in 2012 (“Pillar of Defence”), and now.

Disillusion and despair are all the more potent that, during the years of the Oslo_Accords, a process of mutual reconciliation engaged both Israelis and Palestinians towards tentative recognition of the other’s pain.

With the ensuing confrontations, both people quickly backpedalled to the existential, elemental, dimension of their conflict.

In adversity, it has become necessary for both Israelis and Palestinians not only to exclude any identification with the other’s pain but also to inflict pain on the other as the sole way to assuage one’s pain and deter the other from inflicting pain.

What, however, unifies the overwhelming camp of war supporters and the dedicated ranks of peace supporters is the acknowledgement that the reality is complex.

Mainstream Israelis realise that their argument that an assessment of the situation requires not being focused solely on the body count in Gaza is a lost cause.

Peace activists understand that the threat that triggered Israel’s operation is tangible, but also the direction in which its outcome might be leading, its consequences and implications for Israel, and, by correlation, for the Palestinians and for peace between the two peoples.

Their ideal of co-existence grinded by years of wars, peace activists reject the focus on suffering if it only serves the hackneyed precept that, on one hand, in war, the end justifies (almost) all means, or, on the other, that war cannot be justified.

They draw fine lines between exercising a legitimate right of self-defence against an unwarranted act of aggression and ever greater use of force, and between the morality, rights and laws of war and the wrongs of the Occupation.

And now that the war seems over, they hang their hope on the realisation by their national leaders that they will urgently initiate a bold diplomatic move towards peace with the Palestinians, and will not let the same amount of time since the previous operation be wasted lest the same, recurring, reality blows up in both peoples’ faces.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Afnan Hamad (far right) and her colleagues demonstrate their invention to convert plastic waste into fuel. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank, Dec 16 2012 (IPS)

Afnan Hamad stands proudly in front of a booth at the Ramallah Cultural Palace exhibition hall, three plastic bottles filled with discoloured liquid on the table in front of her.

“We designed a device to convert plastic waste into gasoline, kerosene and diesel fuel,” explains the 23-year-old chemical engineering graduate from An-Najah National University in Nablus, pointing to one of the bottles. “We hope to see a real factory built, and be the first supplier of alternative fuel in Palestine.”

Hamad and her colleagues – Marah Jamous, Mohammad Manasrah and Rahal Rashed – displayed their machine to convert waste into reusable fuel as part of the ‘Made in Palestine 2012’ fair held last week in Ramallah, an annual event that aims to promote skills and innovations that often get buried beneath the hardships of daily life in Occupied Palestine.

While it started off as a miniature experiment, Hamad’s machine can now hold ten kilogrammes of plastic waste and produce nine litres of fuel, she explained, adding that the invention was designed to address economic and environmental problems prevalent in the area.

“Using our device, we can get rid of a huge amount of waste, which is difficult to do in Palestine,” she told IPS. “Also since we don’t have petrol here, we can produce fuel at a lower cost. One litre of fuel will cost five shekels (about 1.30 dollars).”

Now in its seventh year, the ‘Made in Palestine’ event was co-sponsored by the local Palestinian organisation Al Nayzak and the Swedish NGO Diakonia. Two exhibitions were held, one in Ramallah and one in the Gaza Strip, showcasing over 20 innovations in the fields of engineering, IT, biology and other sciences.

“It doesn’t only tackle science, innovation and technology; (the event) also addresses the idea of business entrepreneurship. We aim to create scientific entrepreneurs who are able to make and found businesses on those innovations that they’ve thought about and put into action,” explained Maha Thaher, international relations officer at Al Nayzak.

With offices in Gaza, Jerusalem and Ramallah, Al Nayzak aims to build a more vibrant scientific culture in Palestine, and encourage critical thinking and science education among Palestinian youth.

“We don’t want students to just avoid these subjects (until) they disappear from our community,” Thaher told IPS, adding that Palestinian students are endowed with a range of talents, which deserve to be nurtured, rather than ignored, by the education system.

“This is the one thing that occupation fails to seize and severely damage: we can (always) count on our minds, our intellect and our people,” she added.

Other innovations on display in Ramallah included a multi-tasking robot equipped with special wheels that allow it to move from left to right without turning, a cell phone application that helps users reserve library books in advance, and an onion planting machine.

Planting onion bulbs can be a tricky exercise, but this machine “plants the bulbs in exactly the right way”, explained inventor and local farmer Ibrahim Da’abes, who owns 100 dunams (nine square kilometres) of farmland in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank and believes his machine will cut farming costs in half.

“The cost is much lower than employing workers to do it by hand. Bigger farmers would need this machine,” he told IPS.

At another booth, 20-year-old computer engineering student Rasha Saffarini, and her colleagues Isra’ Al-Qatow and Abdullah Al-Qatow, showcased their cell phone application that helps people reach a healthy weight.

Called ‘Healthy Gate’, the application asks users for various inputs – including current and ideal weight, age and food preferences – and sets alarms to alert them when, and what, they should eat throughout the day.

“Because of the difficulty of going to the gym, we make it easy for people to be their ideal weight,” said Saffarini, who is in her last year at the Palestine Technical University in Tulkarm, a city in the western West Bank.

Many of the participants of the ‘Made in Palestine’ fair were women. This, according to Thaher, highlights a growing acceptance within the Palestinian community of science education as a legitimate pursuit.

Families have generally been sceptical of the idea of their daughters pursuing dreams of making an important scientific invention or discovery, since this strays so far from the traditional path women are expected to walk.

“At times we had to go door-to-door and talk to parents about how they should let their daughters be involved in such programmes and build on their ideas,” Thaher said.

“But once the parents see their children so involved in this system that cares for their scientific approaches, they start to think differently themselves.”

According to Hamad, “Our families are very proud and so are we. We invented something new for Palestine.”

(END)

Tramadol pills have become dangerously popular in Gaza as an antidote to the stresses of Israeli occupation. Credit: Emad Badwan/IPS.

By Eva Bartlett
GAZA CITY, Oct 21 2012 (IPS)

It’s being taken as an antidote to the stresses of Occupation. But the prevalence of the painkiller Tramadol in the Gaza Strip has more to do with its ease of availability than its singular effectiveness as a reality-numbing substance.

Under siege since early 2006, means of relaxation are scarce, and even some of the most resilient and educated people in the Strip have sought in Tramadol a break from the dire realities of trauma, manufactured poverty and continual stress.

A synthetic drug often prescribed for pain-related ailments, the innocuous pill comes in a second, more potent and potentially lethal variety: the illegal black market kind.

“Every week, we get three or four overdose cases, most of them young men,” says Abu Yousef, 34, a paramedic for over ten years. “Patients are sweaty, delirious, are vomiting, have abdominal pain, and may be hallucinating…it’s morphine after all, it has many side effects.”

Although never addicted, he himself took prescription Tramadol after his release from years in Israeli prisons. “I was taking tramadol for abdominal pain after I was released. But I stopped taking it, I take an analgesic now,” he says.

But the vast majority of users these days are not taking the pill on doctors’ advice. “Some people feel it makes them strong, gives them power. Even some medics take it now and then, because they work long shifts. Tunnel workers are more prone to taking it regularly. But for them it’s about maintaining stamina, not about getting numb.”

Dr. Hossam Al Khatib, 28, specialises in addictions. In his work helping addicts break their habits, he sees a variety of backgrounds and reasons for taking the drug.

“Most want to forget their problems, and Tramadol helps with this, temporarily,” he says. “There is high unemployment among youths and adults in Gaza, so in the past six years, even more people have started using Tramadol, including recent university graduates who a year or years after graduating haven’t found work.”

Although he says there was a substantial increase in drug usage after the trauma of the 2008-2009 Israeli war on Gaza, Khatib cites the complete closure of the Gaza Strip as the primary reason for current high levels drug usage. “The siege causes all of the problems: high unemployment, hopelessness, stress, anxiety, depression. Even some youths 15 years and older, take it because their lives are so difficult.”

With the pills sold cheaply on the streets of Gaza, starting to take and becoming addicted to the pills is easier for Gaza’s youths than other more expensive, less available, hard drugs.

Khatib explians that drugs and marijuana have been present in Gaza since long before 2006 and the imposition of the Israeli-led siege on Gaza. “But people weren’t using Tramadol and drugs as an escape mechanism, not like now. It really is a product of the siege.”

The causes of usage are deeper than mere joblessness and frustration, Khatib says. “The situation in Gaza is causing a change in Palestinian society, leading to more problems in the family. For example, a son whose younger brother has work but he himself doesn’t. He feels ashamed at not being able to contribute to the family, or to provide for his own wife and children.”

Young men of marrying age who cannot afford the cost of a wedding and married life are also increasingly at risk of developing Tramadol or other addictions, as a temporary relief from their shame and misery, Dr. Khatib notes.

While he says some are merely casual users, in Khatib’s experience roughly 20 percent are chronic users. “Addicts,” he says.

Both Khatib and Abu Yousef say the majority of drugs enter via the tunnels from Egypt, the lifelines of Gaza which have brought in foods, livestock, agricultural and fishing needs, and virtually everything banned by Israel under its years-long closure of Gaza’s borders.

“Due to the widespread poverty in Egypt, many Egyptians make Tramadol at home, to sell. Some is a mix of morphine and mouse poison,” says Abu Yousef. “Poison is an excitant, it stimulates the brain to produce serotonin, as does Tramadol. The poison itself is not addictive, but in high doses or repeated usage it can kill.”

As with most addictions, the irony in Tramadol use is that it not only does not solve the root problems for which users seek it out, but actually compounds them, says Khatib.

“Normal after-effects and withdrawal symptoms are depression, anxiety, insomnia, hopelessness, and remorse at having taken the drug. With chronic addicts, there may be loss in coordination, sexual problems and even sterility.”

Recognising most Tramadol addicts as faultily seeking a solution to their psychological state, Khatib stresses the importance of counseling once users have stopped taking the pill. “We try to make them feel important and hopeful, and encourage them to socialize, not to remain withdrawn from friends and their community.”

Unemployment being one of the key initial stressors, Khatib’s clinic tries to help ex-addicts find work “and encourage them to be patient in their job search, not to give up or give in to despondence.”

The root problems do vary, he says, but as with many of Gaza’s current problems, the solution is painfully clear: “If the borders were opened, the siege lifted, work available again, people here wouldn’t feel hopeless, wouldn’t feel the need to take drugs like Tramadol,” says Dr. Khatib.