Hicham Safieddine, Electronic Intifada 18 August 2010

Photo Massel Cassel A weapon is positioned at a UN base in southern Lebanon.

The international coverage of border clashes between Lebanese and Israeli military forces earlier this month may have suggested the confrontation was a mere squabble over cutting a tree that went awry in a “trigger-happy” and “conflict-prone” region. Less than a week later, one of several recent speeches by Hizballah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah managed to get brief global media coverage. He presented visual and audio material suggesting that Israel may have assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005.

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Open letter, 18 August 2010

Photo: Protesters hold Palestinian and Turkish flags during a rally to denouncing Israel’s attack on an aid ship bound for Gaza in New York, Tuesday, June 1, 2010.

The following open letter to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of Turkey, was issued by various Palestinian organizations on 17 August 2010:

Dear Mr. Prime Minister We are writing to you from under a brutal, hermetic siege now entering its fourth year to express our outrage against the nomination of the notorious former president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe Velez to the Panel of Inquiry into the 31 May 2010 Israeli brutal attack on the humanitarian flotilla to Gaza.

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Jerrold Kessel & Pierre Klochendler, Electronic Intifada 17 August 2010

Photo: Luay Sababa Palestinians try to cross into Jerusalem through an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank city of Bethlehem during the first Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, 13 August 2010.

Hirbet Deir, occupied West Bank – For Muhammad al-Baradiyeh, 38, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is always a blessing.

In fact, every day of the month-and-a-half prior to Ramadan has been good for Muhammad. Thanks to a permit granted by the Israeli authorities, he’s been able to work inside Israel and save extra money he’ll need for the holiday.

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guardian.co.uk by Ben White, Tuesday 17 August 2010

Photo Beduoin Camp, Dead Sea Valley, Jordan.

The Jordan Valley, stretching all the way down the West Bank’s eastern side, is a microcosm of Israel’s discriminatory policies of colonisation and displacement. For 40 years, settlements have been established, military no-go areas declared, and Palestinians’ freedom of movement restricted. There are now 27 colonies in the Jordan Valley – most of them had been established by the late 1970s under Labour governments. There are also nine “unauthorised” outposts. In the 1990s, the size of territory afforded to the settlements increased by 45%.

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August 2010 by Jeff Halper Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Photo Palestinian home under Israeli demolition.

On the day before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began, at 2:30 in the morning, workers sent by the Israeli authorities, protected by dozens of police, destroyed the tombstones in the last portion of the Mamilla cemetery, an historic Muslim burial ground with graves going back to the 7th Century, hitherto left untouched. The government of Israel has always been fully cognizant of the sanctity and historic significance of the site. Already in 1948, when control of the cemetery reverted to Israel, the Israeli Religious Affairs Ministry recognized Mamilla “to be one of the most prominent Muslim cemeteries, where seventy thousand Muslim warriors of [Saladin’s] armies are interred along with many Muslim scholars. Israel will always know to protect and respect this site.”

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TruthDig by Chris Hedges, Aug 16, 2010

Photo: Palestinian child standing close to Israeli occupation soldiers in West Bank.

Time is running out for Israel. And the Israeli government knows it. The Jewish Diaspora, especially the young, has a waning emotional and ideological investment in Israel. The demographic boom means that Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories will soon outnumber Jews. And Israel’s increasing status as a pariah nation means that informal and eventually formal state sanctions against the country are probably inevitable.

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PACBI – Occupied Ramallah, 15 August 2010

Photo Palestinian walks along Israeli apartheid wall.

Once again, the Brand-Israel machine is in high gear, this time organizing a million-dollar international youth extravaganza in Eilat in September 2010 called “Funjoya.” This unabashed propaganda exercise is sponsored by the Israel Ministry of Tourism and the Israeli Student Union, among other official and semi-official bodies. The Ministry of Tourism explains one of the aims of the festival: “branding Israel as an attractive tourism destination for students, an improvement in Israel’s image among this target group and facilitating multi-cultural encounters for students from Israel and European countries.” [1]

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U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. July 2010. download report

Photo: Palestinians surviving in terrible living conditions under Israeli occupation.

In recent weeks, around 550 people have lost their homes or sources of livelihood as a result of demolitions carried out by Israeli authorities in East Jerusalem and Area C. These recent developments represent a significant increase in demolitions and forced displacement in the West Bank, raising a number of serious humanitarian concerns.

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par Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle – Beyrouth, Liban. traduction: JPP

Photo Simon Norfolk Bourj el-Barajneh – camp de réfugiés palestiniens.

Deux fillettes se tiennent là, debout, comme figées, et à leurs pieds commence Beyrouth, comme toujours pleine de vie. Leur balcon, comme le reste de leur maison et la plus grande partie de leur camp de réfugiés, est d’une couleur indéfinissable. Sale, comme leurs vêtements. Elles par contre sont belles et radieuses, même si leur avenir ne l’est pas.

Ici, à Bourj el-Barajneh, l’un des douze camps de réfugiés palestiniens au Liban, le temps semble s’être arrêté il y a des années. Génération après génération, les enfants ont grandi dans la même réalité désespérée, punis pour des crimes qu’ils n’ont pas commis, blessés par une histoire qu’ils n’ont pas écrite. Les fillettes se tiennent là, debout, sur leur balcon sale, fissuré, irréparable, à regarder vivre Beyrouth et le monde.

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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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