Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) August 2010.

Photo Palestinian boy fills container with water collected at UN school in Gaza.

The signs which dot the beach along the Gaza City waterfront are clear: “THIS BEACH IS POLLUTED,” they read, and yet they seem to serve only as obstacles for children running to the sea rather than warnings to be heeded of the serious health risks associated with swimming here. For those who care to doubt the sign’s veracity, one need only to stroll north along the beach for a couple hundred meters to see raw sewage being pumped directly into the Mediterranean Sea from one of the 16 discharge sites along the coast. Yet thousands fill Gaza’s beaches and waters in spite of the clear dangers.

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Jimmy Johnson, Electronic Intifada, 21 July 2010

Photo: Women march against the Israeli wall in a scene from Budrus.

Event-based storytelling is an infamous form most prominent in the science fiction sub-genre of the Space Opera. The main failing of the style is the general inability of event progression to effectively substitute for character development. Budrus is an event-based story without all but the most minimal character development, yet it still succeeds by compellingly capturing a moment. Director Julia Bacha combines conventional point-and-shoot with in situ interviews, beautiful and sometimes chaotic footage of protests, maps, graphics and a bit of expository text to piece together a lovely film exploring the evolution of the West Bank village of Budrus’ resistance to Israel’s wall, and its reclaiming of its destiny.

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Nora Barrows-Friedman, Electronic Intifada 25 May 2010

Photo: Israel denies Palestinians in “unrecognized villages” basic services like water and electricity. (Yotam Ronen/ActiveStills)

Al-Masadiya, al-Garin, Khirbat al-Watan, Bir al-Hamam, Khashem Zana, Sawin, al-Shahabi, Wadi al-Naam and al-Mashash are all Palestinian Bedouin villages facing destruction by bulldozers and cement mixers as Israel’s transportation ministry plans to lengthen its Trans-Israel Highway southward into the Naqab (Negev) desert. This means that more than 3,000 Palestinian Bedouins could be displaced if an injunction filed by Israeli civil rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) doesn’t succeed in the high court.

Spokespeople for Bimkom (Planners for Planning Rights), the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages in the Negev, some of the groups filing the injunction, say that the Israeli government approved the highway construction without consideration for indigenous populations in the Naqab.

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Boycott National Committee (BNC) – Palestine, March 2010

Photo: Palestinian boy walking in Gaza Strip.

A Vote for Israel’s Accession to the OECD is a Vote in Support of Israel’s War Crimes and Other Grave Violations of International Law and Human Rights

Palestinian civil society urges the peoples and governments of OECD member states to defer Israel’s OECD accession until it respects international law and the human rights of the Palestinian people and shows commitment to the fundamental values shared by OECD members.

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Tadamon! statement of solidarity with resistance against the Vancouver 2010 Olympics

Photo: Mohawk flag over highway during Six Nations blockade in 2007.

From February 12-28, 2010 the Winter Olympic games will take place in Vancouver, British Columbia. As a grassroots social justice collective who engages in Middle-East solidarity from an anti-capitalist and anti-colonial perspective, Tadamon gives its solidarity and support to the many social justice and indigenous organizations who are calling out to disrupt and protest the Vancouver Winter Olympics. From Palestine to the Coast Salish Territory (“Vancouver”), there can never be justice on stolen land.

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30 December 2009 B’Tselem report

Photo: ActiveStills Israeli check-point during Ramadan in Palestine.

On 29 December 2009, the High Court of Justice ordered, by majority opinion, cancellation of the ban on Palestinian movement along the section of Route 443 that lies beyond the Green Line. Justice Uzi Fogelman, who wrote the majority opinion, held that the military commander is not authorized to impose such a ban, and additionally, that it is not proportionate. The justices give the military commander five months to formulate an alternate solution that will provide security to Israelis using the road.

In the past, the relevant section of the road was a main traffic artery in the southern part of Ramallah District. Over the years, the route was widened and changed, and in the 1980s, Israel repaved it. The widening of the road was accomplished by expropriating public and private land of Palestinians from the adjacent villages. In its response to the petitions filed by the Palestinian landowners, the High Court held that these expropriations were legal inasmuch as the road was intended to also serve the Palestinian residents.

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Gamal Nkrumah Al-Ahram 10 – 16 December 2009.

Photo Skyline from the sea coast in Alexandria, Egypt.

Mustafa Tolba, president of the International Centre for Environment and Development and a key participant at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, warned that even though the Arab world produces a mere five per cent of global carbon emissions, several Arab countries are in disproportionate danger from the negative impacts of global warming.

At the Copenhagen Environmental Summit the overriding concern seems to be who is responsible for global warming instead of what to do about the negative impact of climate change.

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27 October 2009, Amnesty International

Photo: Nicholas Marcroft (c) Drinking scarce water in occupied Palestine.

“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.

In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.

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report Al Jazeera Tuesday, October 27, 2009.

Photo: Palestine across the Dead Sea, viewing from Jordan.

Israel is denying Palestinians adequate access to clean, safe water while allowing almost unlimited supplies to Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, human rights group Amnesty International has said.

“Swimming pools, well-watered lawns and large irrigated farms in Israeli settlements… stand in stark contrast next to Palestinian villages whose inhabitants struggle even to meet their domestic water needs,” the group said in a report released on Tuesday.

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par Nayla Naoufal | Le Panoptique

Photo: Nicholas Marcroft (c) l’eau potable en Palestine occupée.

Dans le conflit israélo-palestinien, l’eau semble à la fois un enjeu important et un dommage collatéral. Les politiques hydriques israéliennes dans les Territoires Palestiniens Occupés et le conflit entraînent des impacts nuisibles sur les ressources en eau partagées et ne font qu’exacerber les hostilités.

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