Hamas's Haniyeh urges Egypt to rethink peace treaty with Israel

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- The prime minister of the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip called Friday on Egypt to reconsider the Camp David peace accords with Israel.

Ismail Haniyeh said during noon prayers that Egypt would be better off if its leaders reconsidered or even canceled the US-brokered peace agreement.

He also called on Egypt to adopt a new strategy to deal with the Sinai, after an armed group's kidnapping of soldiers led to the closure of the Rafah crossing for days.

“Gaza is not a sanctuary for fugitives. We do not cover up crimes,” Haniyeh said. more

Gaza man dies in Rafah tunnnel collapse - 232nd such death since siege

Friday evening, May 254 2013, Palestinian medical sources have reported that one Palestinian was killed and another was injured when a siege-busting tunnel collapsed on them, in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

The sources said that Hamad Odah Abu Shallouf, 25, was buried under the rubble of the collapsed tunnel. Medics and rescue teams arrived at the scene and located him body, one resident was also injured in the incident.

At least 232 Palestinians have been killed in similar accidents since the Israeli siege was imposed on Gaza in June of 2007. more

Audio: Sahar Francis on connecting Israeli jails, Guantanamo and US mass incarceration

http://cdn1.electronicintifada.net/sites/electronicintifada.net/files/ei_podcast_5-23-13.mp3

This week on The Electronic Intifada podcast:

- Settlers attack a West Bank farmer twice a week - Palestinian prisoners who starved for art are honored by a Gaza show - Human rights attorney Sahar Francis of the Palestinian prisoners’ advocacy organization Addameer speaks out about holding Israel accountable for its system of mass incarceration of Palestinians - Investigate the killing of a US teen, a rights group tells Obama - News from the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement including activists gearing up for a protest in London to call for the cancellation of Israel as the location for the European Under-21 football championship
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Toxic gas used as anesthesia in Gaza hospital

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) – Anesthesiologists in Gaza hospitals confirmed Wednesday that a nitrous oxide canister, bought from Israel, contained carbon monoxide and was used mistakenly.

Gaza minister of health Mufeed Mukhallalati says medics at al-Shifa Hospital had an “unprecedented case which almost killed several patients at the hospital’s main operation room.”

He added that anesthesiologists noticed that the patients’ reaction to the anesthetic gas was very dangerous. Four patients suffered severe cardiac arrest but medics managed to save the patients’ lives.

“We decided to stop all surgeries Wednesday” as a precaution, he said. more

Gaza: 2 convicted collaborators sentenced to death

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) – A court in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Thursday sentenced two people to death and a third to hard labor after they were found guilty of collaboration with Israeli intelligence.

A Ma’an reporter said two convicts, one of whom is 43 years old, were sentenced to death by hanging. A 53-year-old man was sentenced to hard labor. Neither were identified by name.

A military high court in Gaza approved the verdicts.

The Hamas-run security services have cracked down on collaborators in the Gaza Strip since launching a campaign in the media to discourage working with Israeli intelligence. more

Hunger-striker agrees to Gaza deportation for 10 years

HEBRON (Ma’an) – Palestinian prisoner Ayman Abu Dawood on Thursday accepted an Israeli proposal to send him to the Gaza Strip for 10 years after he ends a hunger strike he started on April 14.

Abu Dawood notified his lawyer Fadi Qawasmi in person about accepting the Israeli suggestion. Qawasmi has visited Abu Dawood at Affula prison, according to the senior lawyer of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society Jawad Bolous.

According to the agreement, Abu Dawood will be sent to the Gaza Strip three months from now. more

Amnesty: Israel, Hamas committed war crimes in Gaza assault

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israel and Hamas committed war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law during Israel's assault on Gaza in November 2012, Amnesty International said Thursday.

In the London-based rights group's annual report, released Thursday, Amnesty said the Israeli air force carried out bomb and missile strikes on residential areas, including strikes that were "disproportionate and caused heavy civilian casualties."

It said that in most cases, Israel did not present evidence that these specific sites had been used for military purposes, while the Israeli navy launched "indiscriminate attacks" on populated coastal sites.

The group also said the military wing of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups fired rockets and other weapons into Israel, killing civilians and damaging civilian property.

It also said armed groups were responsible for the deaths of at least two Palestinians after rockets fell short of their targets in Israel.

The report accused Hamas as well as the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority of abuses including arbitrary arrests of political opponents and torture in Palestinian prisons.



Hamas denies

A Hamas spokesman dismissed the report as unfair. more

'Wars on Gaza have become part of Israel's system of governance': interview with filmmaker Yotam Feldman

In his new documentary, ‘The Lab,’ Yotam Feldman explores how Israel’s weapons industries interacts with the country’s politics, economy and military decision-making. Israeli weapons, military technology and know-how become more valuable because they have been field-tested in its wars and combat against Palestinians and neighboring countries. A conversation with Yotam Feldman about his film, arms dealers and Israel’s war economy.

Perhaps we should start with the question of Israel’s international standing. In recent years it is often termed as “growing global isolation.” This isolation may diminish at times, but there is a wall-to-wall consensus about Israel becoming less popular with every war and military operation. You say that in fact the opposite is true. In your film, one can see officers from armies the world over coming to Israel to purchase arms – from Europe, India, Latin America, and of course – the U.S. So is this talk of criticism and isolation a show in which everyone partakes? Or is this criticism another force that we need to take into account?

I think that a view of Israel as an unrestrained savage that resides in a brutal neighborhood and therefore has to exercise excessive/immense albeit necessary force, has taken hold. It follows that this view is usually condescending-forgiving. More importantly, I believe that Israel’s security marketing succeeds where Israeli Hasbara [advocacy] is less fruitful. Many people fail to make the connection between Israel’s hi-tech weapons and the unrestrained military force about which one can read in reports by human rights NGOs. People think of these as two disparate phenomena merely existing in spatial and temporal proximity. If you read the Goldstone Report about the bombing of the ceremony at the police academy in Gaza on the first day of Cast Lead, and then read a marketing brochure of Rafael about the operational experiment involving “Spike 4″ (the missile used by Israel in that incident), some effort is required in order for you to realize that these are different accounts of one historical event. The same goes for the drones used for assassinations in Gaza. On the other hand, It is possible that the Europeans understand all this and simply don’t care.

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Prisoners who starved for art honored by Gaza show

For former Palestinian detainee Abdelfattah Abu Jahil, prison art is a victory.

“At the beginning, it was really hard,” he said of painting, embroidery and sculpture during his first detention by Israeli forces in 1983. “It wasn’t allowed. We had to keep it hidden from the guards. And we had to smuggle the tools, like beads and threads, to make the art.”

That changed, he said, when a mass hunger strike forced the Israeli Prison Service to let Palestinian detainees keep and use art supplies.

“The greatest achievements of the prisoners’ movement were in 1985,” Abu Jahil said. “We went on hunger strike to force the Israelis to allow us to make art, among other things. I myself went on hunger strike for 79 days.”

Their success allowed art by detainees to flourish, he explained. “After the [Israeli Prison Service] allowed prisoners to make art, we were able to ask our families to send supplies, or buy them from the small shops in the prisons.”

Today, Abu Jahil, who was finally released from his fourth detention in 2002, continues to make art about detainees and the prisoners’ movement in Gaza. more

Egypt reopens Rafah after kidnapped soldiers released

EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma'an) -- Egyptian police officers reopened the Rafah crossing on Wednesday following the release of seven Egyptian officers on Wednesday, military officials said.

The crossing had been closed for 5 days following the abduction of the servicemen on Thursday by armed gunmen.

The seven officers were released in a desert area south of el-Arish city, Egyptian security services told Ma'an. A military helicopter immediately headed to the area and took the Egyptian officers back to Cairo.

A spokesman for the Egyptian armed forces, colonel Ahmad Muhammad Ali, confirmed that the soldiers had been released and were on their way to Cairo. more

Thousands of Gazans stranded as Rafah crossing closed for fifth day

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Egyptian authorities kept the Rafah crossing with Gaza closed for a fifth consecutive day on Tuesday, despite efforts by Palestinian officials to reopen the terminal.

Egyptian police closed the Rafah crossing on Friday after gunmen ambushed two minibuses in Sinai's Wadi al-Akhdar and detained seven Egyptian servicemen.

The police said they would not reopen Rafah crossing until their colleagues were released.

A Gaza based center for human rights said that over 2,400 Palestinians are stranded at both sides of the crossing. The group urged Egyptian authorities to open the crossing and "exclude it from the internal affairs of both sides."

Passengers told Ma'an on Monday that they were making do with cardboard and newspapers to sleep at night, and to avoid the heat of the sun during the day. Some sleep in mosques, and very few can afford to hire a hotel room in el-Arish.

Some passengers have even managed to cross into Gaza through smuggling tunnels. more

Official: Hamas willing to close down tunnels if commercial crossings opened

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- The Hamas government in Gaza is willing to close down all smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian border once a commercial crossing opens, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.

"We do not want the tunnels in the first place," said Ghazi Hamad. "They burden citizens and cause hundreds of fatalities, but they are essential because there is no alternative."

"The tunnels issue can be resolved by finding a solution that balances the security needs of Egypt and the humanitarian needs of the Gaza Strip through lawful commercial transactions monitored by both," he added in a statement.

The tunnel industry thrived under Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, providing a lifeline by smuggling goods into the besieged enclave. Egypt has cracked down on the network, flooding tunnels with sewage over fears that they are being used to smuggle weapons and fighters into the restive Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt's reopening of the Rafah crossing on its border with Gaza in May 2011 eased travel for Palestinians, many of whom had not been able to leave the enclave since 2007. However, commercial goods do not pass through the terminal, and Palestinians in Gaza still rely on the tunnels. more

Israel demolishes 4 homes in East Jerusalem

JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces demolished two homes in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Tuesday, having earlier destroyed two Palestinian homes in al-Tur.

Witnesses said that a large Israeli police force surrounded the buildings in Jabal al-Mukabbir and closed off the area before demolishing the buildings.

One building belonged to the Abu al-Dabaat family and consisted of three floors housing four families. The second building was home to the al-Qaq family and housed three people.

The al-Qaq family built the property 13 years ago and received a demolition order in 2002 for lacking a building permit. The demolition order was halted and an Israeli court ordered the family to pay 80,000 shekels ($21,800) as a penalty.

The family then tried to obtain a building permit, but were unable to do so. more

Israel to re-extend Gaza fishing zone to 6 miles

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- The Israeli government has decided to re-extend Gaza's fishing zone to 6 miles, after reducing it in March following a rocket attack from the coastal territory, a statement from Israel's army said Tuesday.

The decision was announced after a meeting between Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Moshe Yaalon, who then informed the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.

Senior Egyptian and international officials were also informed about the decision, the statement added.

In March, Israel's army announced that the fishing zone for Palestinians in Gaza would be reduced from six to three miles following a rocket attack. more