#mkhaimar abusada
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by Rinat Harash
In over three weeks of extensive coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, National Public Radio (NPR) has managed to commit an impressive amount of journalistic wrongdoings, misleading tens of millions of devoted listeners across America.
Since the atrocious Hamas massacre on October 7, NPR has been overwhelmingly focused on the victimization of Palestinians, while interviewing biased individuals, omitting critical facts, and including outright distortions.
One of NPR’s most egregious reports from this period, which includes all of the above, is Daniel Estrin’s “Examining who carried out the brutal violence in Israel three weeks ago.”
In this despicable attempt to humanize the perpetrators of the deadly carnage, rape and kidnapping, listeners need to suffer through empathy-inducing descriptions such as this:
On October 8, a militant returned to Gaza with Mohammed’s cellphone and personal effects and told Mohammed’s family what happened. He said Mohammed had made it a mile or two inside Israel, and an Israeli aircraft shot him — five bullets to the chest, one near the neck. Mohammed recited a prayer before he died.
The neighbor told us Mohammed had led a pretty ordinary life. He didn’t finish his high school matriculation exam. He worked as a taxi driver. He got married, had lots of friends and family at his wedding, started a business selling food products. But everyone in the family and neighborhood knew he belonged to the militant wing of the Iranian-aligned Islamic Jihad.
NPR’s Estrin then turns to interview Mkhaimar Abusada, whom he introduces as “a political analyst” in Gaza.
In fact, Abusada is also Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, who has called for violence against Israelis. Surely, this is a relevant piece of information to mention when NPR gives him the platform to say: “Hating the Jews or hating Israel as an occupier … that probably explain the brutality that took place on the 7th of October”.
At the end of the report, Estrin includes an edited version of a phone call from a terrorist to his parents in Gaza on October 7. The full recording of the call, released by Israel on October 25, clearly includes the terrorist’s father congratulating him after the son boasts of killing ten Jews.
NPR’s version — through Estrin’s narration — omits this. Instead, it makes it look like the family wanted the son to return home and never supported his actions. It even goes as far as evoking empathy for their plight under Israeli bombardment.
#npr#media bias#national palestinian radio#national public radio#daniel estrin#mkhaimar abusada#hamas#gaza
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The voice on the recording was calm and precise as it delivered a message of horror. “In light of the continuing crimes against our people, in light of the orgy of occupation and its denial of international laws and resolutions, and in light of American and western support, we’ve decided to put an end to all this,” said the speaker, filmed shrouded in shadows, “so that the enemy understands that he can no longer revel without being held to account.” The voice heard on the video, released within hours of Saturday’s attack on Israel, purported to belong to Mohammed Deif, commander of the military wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and mastermind of the incursion.
The mass raid in the early hours of Saturday has killed at least 600 people in Israel, left more than 2,000 Israelis injured and taken Deif’s decades-long campaign against the Jewish state to a brutal and unpredictable new level. Even as his message was being broadcast, hundreds of Hamas fighters were breaching the border fence between the blockaded Gaza Strip and Israeli territory, fanning out across southern Israel under the cover of thousands of rockets. Within hours, Hamas had scored an unprecedented first strike against Israel while taking dozens of hostages — estimated on Sunday to number about 100 — back to its teeming coastal enclave. Hamas’s social media channels simultaneously released slickly produced videos showing its militants paragliding over the border and gruesome images of dead soldiers and terrified Israeli civilians.
For Deif, whose nom de guerre meaning “Guest” is taken as a reference to the practice of Palestinian fighters spending each night at the home of a different sympathiser in order to evade Israeli intelligence, the assault was his most audacious and deadly yet. Hunted by Israel for decades and almost killed in an air strike 20 years ago that reportedly left him in a wheelchair after losing an arm and a leg, Deif’s ability to outwit Israel’s military while killing soldiers and civilians alike has earned him the reverence of Palestinian militants. With the Israeli military seemingly caught unawares, Deif has catapulted himself to the highest echelons of the Palestinian leadership, eclipsing his rivals in Fatah, the more moderate faction favoured by the west, and his counterparts in Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the US, EU and Israel.
“Even before this, Deif was like a sacred personality and very much respected both within Hamas and by the Palestinians,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of politics at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. His biggest operation against Israel will have now turned him into a figure “like a god to the young”, he added. The most significant factor for Hamas is the sheer number of hostages hauled back to Gaza. Israel handed over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners to free a single soldier, Gilad Shalit, after five years of captivity by Hamas in 2011. “Hamas understands very well that, when it comes to holding Israeli prisoners, patience is all they need,” said a regional diplomat who helped negotiate Shalit’s release. “Over time, the Israeli public will create the pressure. All Hamas has to do is wait.”
In interviews, Israeli and Palestinian analysts, including people who knew Deif before he vanished into the shadows of Palestinian militancy, described a quiet, intense man uninterested in the internecine rivalries of Palestinian factions. Instead, they said, he was single-minded about changing the nature of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and using violence as a means to achieve it. “You should fight the Israelis inside Israel, and demolish their fantasy that they can be safe in occupied land,” said a Palestinian fighter turned mid-level politician who met Deif in the early 2000s.
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THE FACE OF EVIL:
'Mohammed Deif' is the nom de guerre of Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the head of the Military wing of the Hamas terror group.
The IDF has named him as the architect of a wave of suicide bombings, including a massive surge in 1996 that killed more than 50 civilians.
As leader of Hamas' military wing, Deif delivered an apocalyptic radio message as the weekend attacks opened with a barrage of thousands of rockets.
The death toll of the Hamas attacks is climbing, with more than 1000 Israeli civilians killed and scores more wounded.
Among the dead and missing are at least 15 Americans.
President Biden said Monday that American citizens are “likely” included in the more than 130 people taken by Hamas kidnap teams.
Deif has continued a conspicuous role in Hamas, as a bomb maker and military leader, despite at least five Israeli operations directed against him.
Dief is confined to a wheelchair after losing an arm and a leg in a failed assassination attempt in the early 2010s. Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of politics at Al-Azhar University in Gaza assessed that the success of Hamas' Saturday’s attacks are likely to increase Dief's profile and make into him to a "god-like" figure to young Palestinians. Dief will be a primary target during the IDF response. https://nypost.com/2023/10/10/who-is-mohammed-deif-palestinian-militant-behind-israel-attack/
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Hamas Declares Cease-Fire With Israel After a Day of Fighting
Experts on both sides said the outcome of the flare-up had essentially restored the situation to what it was.
“The main title of this round is ‘Rules of Engagement,’ ” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad argued that Israel was trying to change the rules of the 2014 cease-fire over the past few months, he said, by bombing targets in the Gaza Strip such as attack tunnels leading to Israel, or by launching the deadly strike against the Islamic Jihad post over the weekend
Now, Professor Abusada said by phone, the groups believe that their rocket and mortar fire had succeeded in sending “a crystal-clear message to Israel that if Israel targets Palestinians and bombs Gaza, it should expect Palestinian retaliation.”
Israel, for its part, has been taking aggressive action on various fronts to deter its enemies, including recent wide-scale action against Iranian targets in Syria. With the recent hostilities in Gaza, experts said, Israel had reminded Hamas of its air superiority and intelligence dominance and had driven home the point that testing Israel was not worth it.
“At end of day, we have taken some very effective strikes against the positions and elements of the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said Yossi Kuperwasser, a former director general of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs. That, he said, “led the terror organizations to conclude that it is against their interest to continue at this point in time.”
Mr. Kuperwasser said the groups had “paid a heavy price.”
“They know it better than most people who are not familiar with the infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” he said, adding, “We are going back to where we were.”
The Israeli military said its targets had included drone storage facilities, rocket manufacturing sites and naval weaponry. Expecting an onslaught, the militants deserted their posts well ahead of time. The last wave of Israeli airstrikes ended around 1 a.m. Other stated targets included military compounds and training facilities, which might have been not much more than patches of empty ground.
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Hamas Declares Cease-Fire With Israel After a Day of Fighting
Experts on both sides said the outcome of the flare-up had essentially restored the situation to what it was.
“The main title of this round is ‘Rules of Engagement,’ ” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad argued that Israel was trying to change the rules of the 2014 cease-fire over the past few months, he said, by bombing targets in the Gaza Strip such as attack tunnels leading to Israel, or by launching the deadly strike against the Islamic Jihad post over the weekend
Now, Professor Abusada said by phone, the groups believe that their rocket and mortar fire had succeeded in sending “a crystal-clear message to Israel that if Israel targets Palestinians and bombs Gaza, it should expect Palestinian retaliation.”
Israel, for its part, has been taking aggressive action on various fronts to deter its enemies, including recent wide-scale action against Iranian targets in Syria. With the recent hostilities in Gaza, experts said, Israel had reminded Hamas of its air superiority and intelligence dominance and had driven home the point that testing Israel was not worth it.
“At end of day, we have taken some very effective strikes against the positions and elements of the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said Yossi Kuperwasser, a former director general of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs. That, he said, “led the terror organizations to conclude that it is against their interest to continue at this point in time.”
Mr. Kuperwasser said the groups had “paid a heavy price.”
“They know it better than most people who are not familiar with the infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” he said, adding, “We are going back to where we were.”
The Israeli military said its targets had included drone storage facilities, rocket manufacturing sites and naval weaponry. Expecting an onslaught, the militants deserted their posts well ahead of time. The last wave of Israeli airstrikes ended around 1 a.m. Other stated targets included military compounds and training facilities, which might have been not much more than patches of empty ground.
The post Hamas Declares Cease-Fire With Israel After a Day of Fighting appeared first on World The News.
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Hamas Declares Cease-Fire With Israel After a Day of Fighting
Experts on both sides said the outcome of the flare-up had essentially restored the situation to what it was.
“The main title of this round is ‘Rules of Engagement,’ ” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad argued that Israel was trying to change the rules of the 2014 cease-fire over the past few months, he said, by bombing targets in the Gaza Strip such as attack tunnels leading to Israel, or by launching the deadly strike against the Islamic Jihad post over the weekend
Now, Professor Abusada said by phone, the groups believe that their rocket and mortar fire had succeeded in sending “a crystal-clear message to Israel that if Israel targets Palestinians and bombs Gaza, it should expect Palestinian retaliation.”
Israel, for its part, has been taking aggressive action on various fronts to deter its enemies, including recent wide-scale action against Iranian targets in Syria. With the recent hostilities in Gaza, experts said, Israel had reminded Hamas of its air superiority and intelligence dominance and had driven home the point that testing Israel was not worth it.
“At end of day, we have taken some very effective strikes against the positions and elements of the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said Yossi Kuperwasser, a former director general of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs. That, he said, “led the terror organizations to conclude that it is against their interest to continue at this point in time.”
Mr. Kuperwasser said the groups had “paid a heavy price.”
“They know it better than most people who are not familiar with the infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” he said, adding, “We are going back to where we were.”
The Israeli military said its targets had included drone storage facilities, rocket manufacturing sites and naval weaponry. Expecting an onslaught, the militants deserted their posts well ahead of time. The last wave of Israeli airstrikes ended around 1 a.m. Other stated targets included military compounds and training facilities, which might have been not much more than patches of empty ground.
The post Hamas Declares Cease-Fire With Israel After a Day of Fighting appeared first on World The News.
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Hamas Declares Cease-Fire With Israel After a Day of Fighting
Experts on both sides said the outcome of the flare-up had essentially restored the situation to what it was.
“The main title of this round is ‘Rules of Engagement,’ ” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad argued that Israel was trying to change the rules of the 2014 cease-fire over the past few months, he said, by bombing targets in the Gaza Strip such as attack tunnels leading to Israel, or by launching the deadly strike against the Islamic Jihad post over the weekend
Now, Professor Abusada said by phone, the groups believe that their rocket and mortar fire had succeeded in sending “a crystal-clear message to Israel that if Israel targets Palestinians and bombs Gaza, it should expect Palestinian retaliation.”
Israel, for its part, has been taking aggressive action on various fronts to deter its enemies, including recent wide-scale action against Iranian targets in Syria. With the recent hostilities in Gaza, experts said, Israel had reminded Hamas of its air superiority and intelligence dominance and had driven home the point that testing Israel was not worth it.
“At end of day, we have taken some very effective strikes against the positions and elements of the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said Yossi Kuperwasser, a former director general of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs. That, he said, “led the terror organizations to conclude that it is against their interest to continue at this point in time.”
Mr. Kuperwasser said the groups had “paid a heavy price.”
“They know it better than most people who are not familiar with the infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” he said, adding, “We are going back to where we were.”
The Israeli military said its targets had included drone storage facilities, rocket manufacturing sites and naval weaponry. Expecting an onslaught, the militants deserted their posts well ahead of time. The last wave of Israeli airstrikes ended around 1 a.m. Other stated targets included military compounds and training facilities, which might have been not much more than patches of empty ground.
The post Hamas Declares Cease-Fire With Israel After a Day of Fighting appeared first on World The News.
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via Online News
#World News#Today News#Daily News#Breaking News#News Headline#Entertainment News#Sports news#Sci-Tech
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Behind bloody Gaza clashes, economic misery and piles of debt
By Loveday Morris, Washington Post, April 23, 2018
Every Friday for the past month, thousands of Palestinians have surged to Gaza’s border fence with Israel in a show of anger and defiance, some throwing stones and molotov cocktails, others simply to be there.
“Young people have nothing to lose,” said 31-year-old Mohammed Sukkar, a few hundred yards from the boundary fence on the first day of protests last month as the crowd retreated after pops of gunfire. Sukkar is unemployed and says he is hard pressed to feed his six children.
Across the 140-square-mile territory, Gazans are struggling to finance their daily lives. Young people--unable to pay for weddings or homes of their own--are delaying marriage, figures show, while health officials say suicide, once virtually unheard of in Gaza, is on the rise.
Universities say students are dropping out because they cannot afford the fees. At the Islamic University in Gaza City, a third of the students did not re-enroll this semester. Graduates have little hope of finding work in their specialized fields.
Unemployment in Gaza is nearly 50 percent, and 68 percent of those between the ages of 20 and 24 are jobless, according to figures from the Palestine Trade Center.
The Gaza Strip’s economy has been crippled by a more than decade-long blockade by Israel, which maintains tight controls on trade and movement in and out of the territory, citing security considerations. But Gazans are also frustrated with the territory’s rulers, the Hamas organization, for its failure to provide basic services, and at the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority for cutting the salaries of its Gaza employees.
The United Nations is warning that something has got to give. Even Israeli security officials have sounded an alarm in recent months, warning that a humanitarian crisis could set off an explosion of violence, putting Israel itself at risk.
“We are on the edge of economic collapse,” said Judge Mohammed Nofal, sorting through a pile of case files in his courtroom in central Gaza, where plaintiffs and accused debtors shuffle in and out to have their financial cases heard.
Nofal’s courtroom, nothing more than a small office stacked with files, provides a glimpse into Gaza’s economic hardships. From behind his desk, he hears about 20 cases a day and rules on another 80 just from the paperwork.
Nofal, one of two financial judges in the Gaza court, says he heard 12,000 cases last year, up 50 percent from a year earlier. The value of checks bounced in the territory surged to $112 million last year, according to the Palestine Monetary Authority. In 2016, the figure was $62 million.
Desperate for small loans, Gazans seek credit wherever they can, Nofal said. Often, for instance, people turn to electronics stores that offer products on credit, signing up to buy televisions or washing machines on installment plans, then immediately selling those appliances to get cash.
When they fail to pay their creditors, a domino effect of defaults is triggered, Nofal said.
Nabil Abu Afash, 58, used to sell furniture on installment. But customers stopped paying him and he had no way to recoup the losses, he said. He sold his house to cover $90,000 of his own debt and now owes rent to a landlord.
On a recent day, he was queuing outside the courthouse, waiting to request that his overdue rent be deferred, when his landlord happened to pass by.
“I owe him $3,000,” Abu Afash said.
“Four thousand,” countered the landlord, Hatem Qalaga, who said he came to court to petition that his debtors be imprisoned.
“What am I supposed to do?” Qalaga continued. “I’m owed $100,000, and now I’m $30,000 in debt myself.”
“It’s collapsing, collapsing,” he said of Gaza’s economy.
As they spoke, a man nearby was bundled off to prison in a police car.
Nofal said prison is a last resort. But he signed 20 arrest warrants on his desk that day.
Everyone is feeling the pinch, he said, acknowledging that his own salary was cut by the local government by 60 percent to $800 a month.
The only solution is for Israel to ease border restrictions, he said.
“People need to work,” Nofal says.
Beleaguered Gazans do not blame only Israel; pressure is building against Palestinian leaders, too.
“It’s because of Hamas,” Ahmed Hamouda, a 25-year-old worker on Gaza’s seafront, said without missing a beat. “This is the reality. We are fed up.”
Gaza is suffering because of Hamas’s isolation from the rest of the world, he said. The group is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, and it has been increasingly ostracized within the Middle East.
While Hamas’s relationship with Egypt has warmed somewhat in recent months, the group’s fortunes took a dive when the Muslim Brotherhood was ousted from power in Egypt in 2013. Since then, Egypt has shut down smuggling tunnels connecting Egypt and Gaza that had generated taxes for Hamas and breathed some life into Gaza’s economy.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has cut wages for its employees in Gaza to squeeze Hamas, a rival political force.
As economic pressure mounts, Hamas has tried to hand over the burden of administering the strip to the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas. But talks to mend a long-standing rift have failed, with Hamas ultimately unwilling to give up its control over security in Gaza. It has, however, handed over the main border crossing with Israel, ceding with that control the taxes collected there.
With Hamas cornered and unable to provide basic services, analysts speculated that another war with Israel could be imminent as the militant group sought a way to divert attention from the internal crisis.
But Hamas has found another release valve--for now at least.
The idea for the weekly protests, dubbed the “March of Return,” has been widely attributed to Palestinian activist Ahmad Abu Artema, who disavowed any political affiliation and said he believes in a one-state solution to the conflict, an arrangement in which Palestinians are given rights alongside Israelis in a democratic state.
He says the “hardship of Gaza” spurred the “revolutionary step” of peacefully protesting against Israel’s occupation and the loss of Palestinian land when Israel was created in 1948.
Artema said it was important for the protests to have the backing of the political parties that rule Gaza. “We cannot deny them,” he said. “They are part of society.”
But for Hamas, the march--however it came about--came at the right moment.
“They decided, I wouldn’t say to hijack the march, I’d say to lead the march,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University. The aim was to deflect attention to Israel “instead of anger and frustration building up against Hamas in Gaza.”
Hamas is testing a new strategy, Abusada said.
“Hamas has realized very late that in military confrontation we lose,” Abusada said. “They are not quitting the military resistance. They are trying to use nonviolent resistance alongside.”
Ahmed Yousef, a former senior adviser to the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, said the demonstrations have provided needed relief.
“We are a little bit happier than before,” Yousef said. “We can see something with this demonstration that the issue of Palestine is seen by the whole world.”
Protest organizers say they hope to sustain the demonstrations until at least mid-May, when Palestinians commemorate what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, marking the flight and expulsion of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians seven decades ago upon Israel’s creation.
The numbers of protesters, though, are declining with the passing weeks, and the toll of the demonstrations continues to rise. More than 1,500 Palestinians have been shot.
And none of this is kick-starting the economy.
Wissam Sabah, 34, runs a mechanic shop and imports building materials in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza.
He pulls out a wad of bounced checks from people who owe him money.
“See all this, all paper, no cash,” he says. He is taking the checks to the police to file a report.
Construction is virtually at a standstill, he said. International aid to the territory is declining, and only just over half of the $5.4 billion dollars pledged for Gaza’s reconstruction in 2014 has been delivered, according to the World Bank.
Tragically, Sabah and others here say, another economic solution exists.
“When there’s a war, they pay attention,” he says. “When there is destruction, there will be reconstruction.”
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Palestinians prepare mass demonstrations along Gaza border
New Post has been published on https://goo.gl/8MQtN3
Palestinians prepare mass demonstrations along Gaza border
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip /March 27, 2018 (AP)(STL.News) — Gaza’s embattled Hamas rulers are imploring people to march along the border with Israel in the coming weeks in a risky gambit meant to shore up their shaky rule, but with potentially deadly consequences.
Beginning Friday, Hamas hopes it can mobilize large crowds to set up tent camps near the border. It plans a series of demonstrations culminating with a march to the border fence on May 15, the anniversary of Israel’s establishment, known to Palestinians as “the Nakba,” or catastrophe.
The group aims to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people for the effort, though it hasn’t been able to get such turnouts at past rallies. Nonetheless, a jittery Israel is closely watching and vowing a tough response if the border is breached.
“When we march to the border, the organizers will decide then what to do,” said Ismail Radwan, a Hamas official. Warning Israel against targeting the protesters, he said “the occupation should not commit any stupidity in confronting the Palestinian crowds.”
Hamas says the demonstration is meant to draw attention to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Gazans whose relatives fled or were expelled from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
But the first-of-its-kind protest also comes at a low point for the Islamic militant group and the 2 million residents of Gaza, where conditions have deteriorated since Hamas seized control of the territory from the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority in 2007.
An Israeli-Egyptian blockade, along with three wars with Israel and a series of sanctions by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, have left Gaza’s economy in tatters. Unemployment is well over 40 percent, tap water is undrinkable and Gazans receive just a few hours of electricity a day.
An Egyptian-led attempt to broker a reconciliation deal between Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah movement took a major downturn earlier this month after a bombing targeted a convoy carrying Abbas’ prime minister and security chief shortly after they entered Gaza. Abbas has blamed Hamas and threatened more financial pressure, such as cutting civil servant salaries or fuel purchases, to force the group to cede control.
“Hamas has realized it’s besieged from three sides; Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, political science professor at Gaza’s al-Azhar University. “It feels the crisis is suffocating.”
He said that for Hamas, the protests can divert attention from their domestic woes while avoiding renewed war with Israel. “They think busying Israel with this issue may put it under pressure,” he said.
As Gaza’s woes have mounted, Hamas’ popularity has plummeted, and it remains unclear whether the group will be able to mobilize the crowds it envisions. Still, a combination of social pressure and curiosity in a territory with few options for recreation could help attract people.
On Tuesday, bulldozers were busy leveling the five camp locations from north to south. Trucks unloaded portable toilet stalls, and the Palestinian Scholars Union, which represents Islamic clerics, declared participation in the protests a religious obligation.
The demonstrations will begin after the Muslim noon prayer on Friday. Buses will carry people from all over Gaza to the five tent camps, situated hundreds of meters (yards) from the border fence.
Hamas and Hamas-allied organizers of the “Great Return March” say the sit-in will remain peaceful through May. But the ultimate plan is to move to the border in mid-May.
Organizers say they are trying to realize the “right of return,” a Palestinian demand that descendants of refugees who lost their homes in 1948 should be able to return to lost family properties in what is now Israel.
Israel opposes any large-scale return of refugees, saying it would destroy the country’s Jewish character. The fate of refugees and their descendants has been a core issue in past rounds of peace talks.
Israeli Cabinet Minister Yoav Galant, a retired general and member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner Security Cabinet, said that Israel had set clear red lines.
“Hamas is in distress,” he said. “They are using in a cruel and cynical way their own population in order to hurt them and to hurt Israel.”
He said the military was well-prepared to prevent any infiltrations. “We will try to use the minimum force that is needed in order to avoid Palestinians wounded and casualties. But the red line is very clear. They stay on the Gazan side and we stay in Israel.”
Violent skirmishes are expected even before May 15. Clashes have erupted along the border every Friday since Dec. 6, when President Donald Trump recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announced plans to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv.
There have been a series of recent incidents along the border, including a bombing that wounded four Israeli soldiers last month. On Tuesday, three Gazans armed with hand grenades managed to cross into Israel and travel some 30 kilometers (20 miles) before they were caught.
The upcoming Jewish holiday of Passover, Israeli Independence Day celebrations in April and the planned move of the embassy in May could lead to additional clashes.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the planned marches “a dangerous, premeditated provocation meant to fan the flames of the conflict and increase tension.”
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By Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (A.S)
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@righinthenads@MeryemMeg and I @kazim_kazim_kazim decided to raise some money for MAP (Medical Aid for Palestine). @MeryemMeg designed a t-shirt for us to sell and raise money for the charity. She’s obviously smashed it right out the park. The t shirts are available online #LINKINBIO. However feel free to donate directly to the charity if you wish if you’re not feeling the shirts. All help is good help. If you like what you see, tag a friend, share a jpg, tweet a link etc. ——
The Guardian: “A decade-long blockade on Gaza, the tiny strip of land surrounded by Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean, has led to the collapse of its economy and the enclave is regularly referred to as an open-air prison. It had been hoped that close to two months of protests, sparked by anger and desperation, would lessen this crisis for two million Palestinians. According to Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University. “The most important thing for the protest was to break the siege, to live in freedom and dignity, to live a better life.” Amid an international outcry, Israeli fire has killed more than 110 people and thousands of others have been shot, mostly in the legs, according to health officials.” (Zero Israeli’s have been injured or killed).
#x2#ENDLESSLOVESHOW#MERYEMMEG#BENI#LOVEISRESISTANCE#MEDICALAIDFORPALESTINE#FROMTHERIVERTOTHESEA#FREEPALESTINE#CHARITY#VIBES#100
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In Palestinian Power Struggle, Hamas Moderates Talk on Israel
By Ian Fisher, NY Times, May 1, 2017
JERUSALEM--Hamas, the militant group built around violent resistance to Israel, sought on Monday to present a more moderate public face, taking its next shot in an intensifying struggle for leadership of the Palestinian cause and international recognition.
Released by Hamas just days before its chief rival, the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, was to meet President Trump, a new document of principles for the group calls for closer ties to Egypt, waters down the anti-Semitic language from its charter, and accepts at least a provisional Palestinian state--though it still does not formally recognize Israel.
With its statement, Hamas is trying to offer a more mainstream-friendly version of its vision for the Palestinian cause, and to gain ground against Mr. Abbas, whose influence is growing more tenuous.
Mr. Abbas is 82 years old, and his rivals within his own Fatah movement are increasingly open about the struggle to succeed him. Seeking to regain the initiative, he has recently waged a crackdown on Hamas, cutting salaries due to them from the Palestinian Authority and refusing to pay for electricity in the militant group’s power base in Gaza.
The split between the two groups--Fatah in the West Bank, Hamas in Gaza--has stood as one of the major obstacles in the peace process with Israel: Who, the Israelis ask, is their partner if the Palestinians are so deeply divided? That division has also been convenient, and encouraged, by those on the Israeli right who do not want a peace deal.
But the Hamas document, which has been leaking for weeks, is less a change in Hamas’ fundamental beliefs than a challenge for the credibility of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank, as well as internationally.
“Whether it’s a coincidence or it’s connected, I have one thing to say: The Palestinian leadership is afraid of this Hamas moderation,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University-Gaza. “Because the P.A. and Fatah are afraid that by this moderation, Hamas presents itself as the true representation of the Palestinian people,” he said, referring to the Palestinian Authority.
The official release came at a telling time and place: Hamas officials, normally secretive, held several events on Monday in Doha, the capital of Qatar, an American ally that would play a crucial role in any deal between the Israelis and Palestinians that Mr. Trump is pushing.
Mr. Abbas was scheduled to meet with Mr. Trump in Washington on Wednesday as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.
Experts on all sides of the complex struggle here say the new document is unlikely to represent any profound change in Hamas’s true position toward Israel. The group recently chose a hard-liner, Yehya Sinwar, as its new leader in Gaza, and it still in no way recognizes Israel or has renounced violence.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said the group had to move beyond its original charter to achieve its goals. “The document gives us a chance to connect with the outside world,” he said. “To the world, our message is: Hamas is not radical. We are a pragmatic and civilized movement. We do not hate the Jews. We only fight who occupies our lands and kills our people.”
The paper reiterates the Hamas leadership’s view that it is open to a Palestinian state along the borders established after the 1967 war, though it does not renounce future claims to Palestinian rule over what is now Israel. And the group specifically weakened language from its 1988 charter proclaiming Jews as enemies and comparing their views to Nazism, though the new document does not replace the original charter.
“Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish, but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine,” the new document states.
In Israel, which has fought three wars with Hamas since 2008, the document was greeted with skepticism.
In distancing itself from the Muslim Brotherhood, analysts said Hamas was likely to improve its often-strained relationship with Egypt, even if it was unlikely to open the border between Egypt and Gaza for trade.
“It’s a huge step for Hamas, but I think they should temper their expectations about the reaction from the Egyptians,” said Abdelrahman Ayyash, a researcher on Islamist movements who is based in Istanbul.
Under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt frequently accuses Hamas of aiding Islamist militants in attacks against Egyptian security forces in Sinai and Egypt’s main cities. Egyptian security officials and pro-government news media accuse Hamas, often without proof, of providing militants with training and guns.
At the same time, Egyptian intelligence has quietly renewed its relationship with Hamas in recent years, in an effort to secure Sinai and to bolster Egypt’s role as a mediator in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
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Gaza Is Outwardly Rebuilding, but Inwardly Fearful
By Ian Fisher, NY Times, Feb. 21, 2017
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip--In her new home, finally finished after she lived two years in a trailer across a dirt road, Samaher al-Masri, 40, showed a video on her cellphone of a cute preschooler: her son Majdi. He was singing:
“I am a son of Palestine, I have a right and a cause …
Even if they shoot me and I die as a martyr, I will not forget the cause.”
Majdi, who was 6, lived through two Gazan wars, though his old family house was toppled by bulldozers in the 2014 fighting with Israel. But the day after he ended kindergarten last year, he caught his hula hoop in a metal door in the trailer. The door was heavy, the frame shoddy. It fell on him and crushed his skull, killing him.
“Something is missing,” his mother said eight months later, in the living room of her house, built on the rubble-cleared plot of the old one. “You asked me if this is better. Yes, it’s better. But I’m missing him. His bedroom was waiting for him.”
So it is in Gaza, outwardly rebuilding and moving on from war, inwardly far from recovered. Gaza seems at a loss for what might be next. After so many years of isolation, residents of Gaza find themselves ever further from Palestinians in the West Bank, their future clouded by rising doubts that they could ever unite and work toward a lasting peace.
Two million tons of rubble have been cleared--about a ton for each person who lives in this cramped coastal strip. Two-thirds of the 160,000 damaged homes have been rebuilt, as have half of the 11,000 that were destroyed. Roads are better, travel faster. People gawk at their first real mall, with a food court and 12 escalators, both rarities in Gaza.
But they are not buying much. Unemployment is high, especially among the many young people graduating from college. In all, 50,000 people remain displaced. Electricity and water supplies are still near crisis levels. Hamas, which governs Gaza, elected a new hard-line leader. Tunnel building goes on (and, presumably, so does the construction and smuggling of weapons). On the Israeli side, the political right talks of a new war in the spring over Hamas’s rearming and expresses a desire to inflict a decisive blow.
As has been the case for a decade, the strip remains encircled. Israel tightly controls most going in and out: food, building supplies, people. Two children died recently for lack of drugs or medical access, one of cancer, the other of a heart problem.
“The blockade of Gaza is something I can compare to the Middle Ages and the besieged castle that can fall at any moment,” said Dr. Fadel Ashour, a psychiatrist in Gaza since 1994. “People in Gaza are not satisfied with who governs this castle. They lack the tools to change it. They live with armed militias, and the institutions are not clear as they are in the West Bank. They know they are paying a price for something they don’t want. Or deserve. This increases their depression and hopelessness.”
It is unclear how the flickers of change elsewhere in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will ripple to Gaza, which is surrounded by Israel on two sides, by Egypt to the southwest and by the Mediterranean. With President Trump in office in the United States, Israel’s right seems to feel empowered and is likely to push more settlements in the West Bank, even to toy with annexation, despite Mr. Trump’s call to slow the pace.
The Palestinian Authority, which has wide backing in the West, seems to be looking abroad for ways to push its immediate future, including persuading the world to recognize a state of Palestine, threatening action in the United Nations and encouraging Israeli boycotts.
Leaders of Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the United States and by many other countries, do not have the same backing from the West. Interviews with political and business leaders, academics and ordinary people can divine only a basic strategy: improve the lives of frustrated residents as its leaders put off as long as possible what they see as the next inevitable war, then fight when it happens. (Life could be better, Hamas’s critics contend, if the group spent less on war preparations.)
Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official, said that with years of failed talks, settlements expanding across the West Bank and Mr. Trump’s apparent ambivalence about a Palestinian state, “You have two options: either to cooperate with the occupation or the resistance. There is no option,” he said. “Where is the two-state solution?”
Interviews make it clear that there is a growing distance between Gaza and the West Bank--a central reason cited by Israelis for the impossibility of negotiations. Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and took control of Gaza in 2007.
“Now, Gaza is something and the West Bank is something else,” said Ibrahim al-Madhoun, a columnist for the Hamas-affiliated news outlet Al Risala. “It’s a fact. You can’t connect the two realities. You will get lost. Things have changed.”
Mr. Madhoun and several others raised a possibility, a very long shot, one that could conceivably be acceptable to Israel’s far right: Someday Gaza--with defined borders, no Israeli occupation and no settlers--could become the basis for a Palestinian state as settlements gnaw away at the West Bank.
“If there is going to be a Palestinian state, it’s going to be Gaza,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, associate professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. “Politically speaking, it’s not right. But this is what’s coming.”
Otherwise, he said, “I don’t think there is a grand strategy where Gaza is in 10 years or 20 years. I know Hamas will never want to give up Gaza as long as it is capable of keeping control.”
Residents say they are focusing on getting by. Industrious and, for the most part, educated, they have cleared and rebuilt to the point that in places it is hard to tell there have been three wars in six years. One giveaway is that the concrete on the houses is fresh dark gray, rather than sun-bleached and weathered. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have underwritten minicities, as caravans and tents slowly empty. The Islamic University has patched the two buildings bombed in two wars and, with great effort, installed an impressive array of 450 solar panels on the science building, even though there is a fear the panels and the building might make a big target in the next war.
Capital Mall opened in January, with four floors of upscale shops. One woman lifted her niqab briefly for a photo in front of a Valentine’s Day flower display. Another posed for her husband, who is in an Israeli jail.
“I feel happy here,” Sana Shanghan, 50, said, visiting with some of her 13 children. “Here, I feel I’m outside Gaza. I forget about Gaza’s problems.”
The feeling was similar inside the steamy domes of Hamam al-Sammara, Gaza’s only remaining bathhouse, heated with olive wood and, its owners say, predating Islam’s arrival over a millennium ago.
“People are tired, kids and old people,” said Salim Abdullah al-Wazir, 66, who runs the house for his family. “More and more come here for psychological support.”
He added: “There is no progress. It’s just survival.”
Mona Ghalayini is betting on more than just survival. One of Gaza’s few businesswomen, Ms. Ghalayini, 46, has built a small empire that began with a fast-food shop in 2003. For most people in Gaza, the sea is simply a place where fishermen work waters constricted by Israeli patrol boats. But she sees potential in the current stability, recently buying two seaside hotels.
“We have brains,” she said, inhaling from a shisha on the patio of one of her hotels. “We have smart people. We can survive, even with the blockade. But we need connection. We don’t want isolation.”
Tourism is the future, she said. Then she reconsidered.
“Who visits Gaza?” she asked. “No one.”
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