Prosthetic limb-fitting centers in southern Lebanon are struggling to cope with the rising toll from the one million unexploded munitions left over from last year’s war with Israel.
OCHA: U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestine
February, 28th 2007: At approximately 02:30 on 28 February, a large force of IDF soldiers and Israeli Border Police re-entered Nablus. This latest incursion marks the continuation of Operation “Hot Winter”, the largest military incursion in three years in Nablus city.
By Alan Johnston, BBC News, Gaza
A UN human rights envoy has compared Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories to elements of apartheid.
The UN’s Special Rapporteur, John Dugard, describes the regime as being designed to dominate and systematically oppress the occupied population.
By Fawwaz Trabulsi, Assafir.
Translation from Marxist in Lebanon, Additions / Editing from Tadamon! Montreal
At a time when “politics” is reduced to little more than a clash of wills, sectarianism and tribalism, a measure of social security should go some way in decreasing religious and sectarian divisions and tensions. This is not to say, however, that the social and economic situation, on its own, is not deserving of a remedy. With politics having prevailed in the ongoing and escalating conflict between the two parties, the government published the paper submitted to the Paris III conference. It will be said that the timing and purpose of the paper’s publication are political since the standing rule is that everything is political in Lebanon. However, there is a need to discuss the paper and its vision and methods for addressing the socio-economic crisis with all its political ramifications. Here are some remarks:
Probe launched into complaints by three detainees in Kandahar
OTTAWA–Two separate probes are underway into a complaint that up to three prisoners suffered injuries while in the custody of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, the Toronto Star has learned.
The allegation, if substantiated, could rock military morale and further undermine public support in Canada’s dangerous – and controversial – mission in Kandahar.
Questions are being asked about how as many as three unidentified men suffered injuries to their upper body while being detained by Canadian soldiers in the Kandahar region last April.
And investigators want to know why the military police officers who eventually took charge of the detainees didn’t do their own probe of the injuries.
The Independent: Robert Fisk:
Lebanon is a good place to find out what tosh the ‘terror’ merchants talk
So it was back to terror, terror, terror this week. The “terrorist” Hizbollah was trying to destroy the “democratically elected government” of Fouad Siniora in Lebanon. The “terrorist” Hamas government cannot rule Palestine. Iranian “terrorists” in Iraq are going to be gunned down by US troops.
My favourite line of the week came from the “security source” – just how one becomes a “security source” remains a mystery to me — who announced: “Terrorists are always looking for new ways to strike terror… There is no end of the possibilities where terrorists can try to cause terror to the public.” Well, you could have fooled me.
Time Magazine: Written by By Nicholas Blanford/Marakeh.
Lebanon. Friday, Feb. 2nd, 2007
To 17-year-old Rasha Zayoun, the small metal canister with a ribbon attached to the top looked like a toy. Her father, Mohammed, had found it while harvesting wild thyme in a field near her house in the southern Lebanese village of Marakeh, and had taken it home in his bag of herbs.
One evening four weeks ago, Rasha picked up the strange object and played with the ribbon, wondering what it was. “Then I felt a tingle of electricity,” she says. “I threw it from me and it exploded before it hit the floor.”
Download / View a film outlining the current effects of cluster bombs in Lebanon produced in late 2006 by IRIN news office of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Tadamon! Weblog of Cluster Bomb Incidents in Lebanon:
Since the U.N. brokered ceasefire Tadamon! Montreal has maintained an online record of cluster bomb incidents in Lebanon. The guns may be more silent, but hundreds of thousands of cluster bomblets sprayed over south Lebanon in at least 770 Israeli strikes still pose a deadly danger to humans and animals. Since the ceasefire on August 14, 156 persons [as of October, 2006] have become victims of cluster munitions, 90% of which were civilians, one third of which are under the age of 18 years.
by Mohamad Bazzi, the Nation
It’s remarkable how quickly everyone remembered the patterns set during Lebanon’s long civil war. When violence suddenly erupted in Beirut on the afternoon of January 25, people rushed to stock up at grocery stores, businesses quickly shut their doors and traffic was snarled throughout the city as everyone hurried home.
While most people prepared for a siege, others were intent on causing trouble: Bands of young vigilantes roamed the streets, armed with wooden clubs and metal pipes, eyeing passing cars for any strangers. The fighting started in the cafeteria of Beirut Arab University between Shiite and Sunni students. In less than an hour, it spread to the surrounding neighborhood of Tariq Al-Jadideh, a Sunni stronghold. Snipers took up positions on the roofs of residential buildings, firing at protesters and Lebanese soldiers trying to break up the melee. Bands of Sunnis and Shiites–some wearing blue and red construction helmets–fought running street battles with rocks and clubs. Armed men roamed through the crowds. Rioters set fire to cars and trash dumpsters, sending plumes of black smoke over the neighborhood.
By the time it was over, four people were killed, more than 150 were injured and the Lebanese army had imposed a curfew on Beirut for the first time since 1996. Rumors circulated wildly, evoking memories of the civil war. The most disturbing news was broadcast on Lebanese television stations shortly before the curfew: Armed vigilantes had set up a checkpoint on the highway linking south Lebanon to Beirut. They were asking people for their identity cards.
Article by Ilan Pappe, January 11th, 2007
This article originally appeared on the Electronic Intifada. Images from MaanImages
On this stage, not so long ago, I claimed that Israel is conducting genocidal policies in the Gaza Strip. I hesitated a lot before using this very charged term and yet decided to adopt it. Indeed, the responses I received, including from some leading human rights activists, indicated a certain unease over the usage of such a term. I was inclined to rethink the term for a while, but came back to employing it today with even stronger conviction: it is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip.
On 28 December 2006, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem published its annual report about the Israeli atrocities in the occupied territories. Israeli forces killed this last year six hundred and sixty citizens. The number of Palestinians killed by Israel last year tripled in comparison to the previous year (around two hundred). According to B’Tselem, the Israelis killed one hundred and forty one children in the last year. Most of the dead are from the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli forces demolished almost 300 houses and slew entire families. This means that since 2000, Israeli forces killed almost four thousand Palestinians, half of them children; more than twenty thousand were wounded.
