Gaza building project experiments with clay and rubble

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - In the face of the ongoing Israeli ban on imports of building materials Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are looking at new building methods, and one project is using clay and rubble. Local Palestinian non-governmental organization Mercy Association for Children began building a school for handicapped children in Gaza City on 24 May to test a recently developed method using clay blocks, salt and rubble. [Palestine]

Palestinians rebuild with mud RAFAH, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - Jihad al-Shaar is pleased with his mud-brick house in the Moraj district of Gaza. The 80-square meter home is a basic one-story, two-bedroom design, with a small kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, made mostly with mud and straw.

"My wife and our four daughters and I were living with family, but it was overcrowded, impossible. We knew we had to build a home of our own," Shaar said. [Palestine]

Pope Benedict XVI upset the schedule on his first day in Israel by leaving an interfaith meeting in Jerusalem early on Monday night after a leading Muslim cleric called on him to condemn the "slaughter" of women and children in the recent assault on Gaza. The pontiff walked out, a spokesman noted, because Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi's speech was a "direct negation" of dialogue and damaged the Pope's efforts at "promoting peace." [Palestine]

Gaza homes vandalized by occupying forces

One of the most important factors in recovery from trauma is the ability to find sanctuary in the comfort of one's home. The right to safety and security. For many people in Gaza, this right has been repeatedly violated, in the form of the destruction of their personal property, often wantonly, by Israeli military forces. [Palestine]

Gazans struggle for clean drinking water
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - As environmental experts, non-governmental organizations and government officials gather in Istanbul this week to attend the Fifth World Water Forum, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has drawn attention to the critical water situation in Gaza. "ICRC teams are repairing water and sewage systems in Gaza that were badly damaged during the three-week Israeli military operation in January," the ICRC says in a media release. [Palestine]

Durban II: no-show is slap in face of victims of apartheid

More and more Western countries are either announcing their boycott or are threatening to boycott Durban II, a United Nations conference scheduled for April to review progress made since the World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa in 2001. Earlier this month, Italy became the first EU member to withdraw from the event, stating that it could not endorse a draft agenda that criticizes Israel. The Electronic Intifada co-founder Arjan El Fassed comments. [Palestine]

Rebuilding the Islamic University of Gaza

Since Israel's bombing of the buildings housing scientific laboratories at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) on 28 December, the rubble that remains debunks Israeli claims that those labs were used to manufacture weapons. Of course such allegations are preposterous; indeed it would be quite foolish for IUG to even entertain the notion of producing weapons given the way in which Palestinian universities have been under constant Israeli attack since the founding of Birzeit University in the West Bank in 1975. Akram Habeeb and Marcy Newman comment for The Electronic Intifada. [Palestine]

Canada becomes Israel

Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper's government publicly supported Israel's brutal assault on Gaza and voted alone at the UN Human Rights Committee in defense of Israel's actions three weeks ago. Now Canada has taken over Israeli diplomacy. Literally. In solidarity with Gaza, Venezuela expelled Israel's ambassador at the start of the bombardment and then broke off all diplomatic relations two weeks later. Israel need not worry since Ottawa plans to help out. On 29 January, The Jerusalem Post reported that "Israel's interests in Caracas will now be represented by the Canadian Embassy." This means Canada is officially Israel, at least in Venezuela. Yves Engler comments for The Electronic Intifada. [Palestine]

Israel lurches into fascism

Whenever Israel has an election, pundits begin the usual refrain that hopes for peace depend on the "peace camp" -- formerly represented by the Labor party, but now by Tzipi Livni's Kadima -- prevailing over the anti-peace right, led by the Likud. But whatever coalition emerges, it will maintain control with more violence and repression as Israel lurches into fascism. Ali Abunimah comments. [Palestine]

Israeli closures prevent import of aid, cement to Gaza

GAZA CITY (IRIN) - Aid agencies are becoming increasingly frustrated with the difficulties of getting humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip. "For us to move ahead with rehabilitation and repairs, we must get building materials into Gaza," Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), told IRIN by telephone. "Two hundred and twenty-one schools for 200,000 children only have 40 percent of their books because we can't get paper and glue into Gaza." [Palestine]

Buried alive

"This is at the beginning, when they started digging survivors and bodies out of the rubble," Abu Qusay said, referring to a photo of himself buried up to his shoulders in rubble, his face bloodied. Just a few weeks after being buried alive by the bombing which attacked the building he was in, only a mere scar at his left eyebrow hinted at the ordeal. Eva Bartlett writes from the occupied Gaza Strip. [Palestine]

Gaza slowly reemerging from the rubble

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - The United Nations is urgently appealing for 613 million dollars to aid more than a million desperate civilians in the ruins of Gaza, where schools, hospitals, houses, factories and even farmland were obliterated during the three-week assault by Israeli air and ground forces. At least 1,300 Palestinians were killed and more than 5,300 injured in the war, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Some 21,000 homes were reported destroyed or badly damaged, and more than 50,000 people were displaced into temporary UN shelters. [Palestine]

Open letter to Haruki Murakami: don't legitimize apartheid

Dear Mr. Haruki Murakami: We ask you to seriously reconsider the social and political significance of a world-famous author such as yourself participating in the book fair, which is fully supported by the Foreign Ministry of Israel and the City of Jerusalem, and receiving the award from the mayor of Jerusalem. [Palestine]

Aid worker: Gaza an "apocalypse"

RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - As fears rise of renewed violence in Gaza, Elena Qleibo, a French-Costa Rican aid worker from Oxfam, gives IPS a first-hand account of surviving Israel's three-week bombardment of Gaza: I was attending a meeting at Gaza City municipality on 27 December when suddenly the meeting was interrupted by heavy booming sounds coming from a short distance away. Plumes of smoke were rising from a number of bombed areas surrounding the building I was in. I and a number of colleagues rushed outside to try and establish what was happening. [Palestine]

Irish civil society calls for boycott of Israel

A letter signed by 300 Irish civil society figures was published in a full-page ad that appeared in the 31 January 2009 edition of The Irish Times. The undersigned stated, "The occupation can end if political and economic pressure is placed on Israel by the international community. Recognizing this, the Palestinian people continually call on the international community to intervene." [Palestine]