39 h. ago ‘There is no life here’: Palestinians say Israel is imposing its Gaza endgame

As Israel’s aid blockade continues and humanitarian zones disappear, there is talk of a ‘second Nakba’ being realisedLike so many others across the Gaza Strip, Khalil al-Hakimi felt a weight lift from his shoulders for the first time in over a year when Israel and Hamas agreed a long-delayed ceasefire in January.He cried and hugged his five children tightly. “I slept deeply, free from the sound of bombing, destruction and death,” he said. Continue reading...

Politics

40 h. ago ‘There is no life here’: Palestinians fear Israel is imposing its Gaza endgame

As Israel’s aid blockade continues and humanitarian zones disappear, there is talk of a ‘second Nakba’ being realisedLike so many others across the Gaza Strip, Khalil al-Hakimi felt a weight lift from his shoulders for the first time in over a year when Israel and Hamas agreed a long-delayed ceasefire in January.He cried and hugged his five children tightly. “I slept deeply, free from the sound of bombing, destruction and death,” he said. Continue reading...

Politics

52 h. ago Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha wins Pulitzer prize for commentary

Renowned poet and author wins prize for series of New Yorker essays on suffering of Palestinians in GazaThe renowned Palestinian poet and author, Mosab Abu Toha, is among this year’s Pulitzer prize winners.Abu Toha was awarded for a series of essays in the New Yorker documenting the lives and suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, where he has lived nearly all his life. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago Gaza blockade: a Palestinian widow, her children and a cupboard that is almost bare

Ibtisam Ghalia and her four children are just one of the families living on brink of starvation with no sign of an end to blockadeEvery day, Ibtisam Ghalia and her four children count their remaining stocks of food. These are meagre: a kilo or so of beans, a bag of lentils, a little salt, some herbs, spices, and enough flour for half a dozen flatbreads cooked on a griddle over a fire of wood splinters, waste plastic and cardboard.In the two months since Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, stopping food, medicine, fuel and anything else from entering the devastated territory, Ghalia’s “cupboard” has slowly diminished. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago ‘We want the fear to end’: a Palestinian widow relives the trauma of loss and struggle for survival

Ibtisam Ghalia and her four children are just one of the families and thousands living on the brink of starvation after blockade on GazaEvery day, Ibtisam Ghalia and her four children count their remaining stocks of food. These are meagre: a kilo or so of beans, a bag of lentils, a little salt, some herbs, spices, and enough flour for half a dozen flatbreads cooked on a griddle over a fire of wood splinters, waste plastic and cardboard.In the two months since Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, stopping food, medicine, fuel and anything else from entering the devastated territory, Ghalia’s “cupboard” has slowly diminished. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Why is Yale University implicitly endorsing Israeli extremist Ben

Shabtai, a Jewish society based at Yale, hosted the extremist far-right politician convicted of supporting terrorism. Why did Yale allow this?Let me start with a statement that should be obvious: deliberately starving 2 million people – half of whom are children – is indefensible. It is not complicated, it is not a nuanced situation that requires a PhD to parse. It is not an unfortunate and unavoidable part of war. It is quite simply indefensible. I would say that it is also very much prohibited by international human rights law, but that doesn’t seem to exist any more, does it?As I write this, no food, water or medicine has been allowed into Gaza for almost two months. It is impossible to know just how bad the situation really is because Israel has imposed a media blackout on the region. However, aid organizations have said: “The Gaza Strip is now likely facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the 18 months” since the war began. Thousands of children are malnourished. Childhood mal...

Politics

3 w. ago Forgotten: Searching for Palestine’s Hidden Places and Lost Memorials review – existence is resistance

In mapping the Palestinian history and culture that persists despite Israeli suppression, Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson display a strength of purpose and a promise of hopeRaja Shehadeh – lawyer, activist and Palestine’s greatest prose writer – has long been a voice of sanity and measure in the fraught, tendentious world of Arab-Israeli politics. His first non-academic book, When the Bulbul Stopped Singing, chronicled the 2002 siege of his hometown, Ramallah, while Palestinian Walks, which won the Orwell prize, traced how Israel’s de facto occupation of the West Bank had fundamentally altered both its geography and its history. Last year, Shehadeh published What Does Israel Fear from Palestine?, his first book since the attacks of 7 October. It was a work in two parts: the first, a characteristically measured analysis of how history led us to this point; the second, a bitterly furious record of the devastation wrought upon Gaza. The overwhelming impression was of a man who, after d...

Politics

3 w. ago IDF unit involved in killing of Palestinian paramedics led by general with ‘contempt for human life’

Golani troops were under command of reservist Armoured 14th Brigade, part of division led by Brig Gen Yehuda VachThe Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit involved in the killings of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in the Gaza Strip last month was under the command of a brigade led by a notorious Israeli general previously accused by some of his own troops of having “contempt for human life”.The IDF has confirmed that troops from Golani, one of the army’s five infantry brigades, opened fire on two convoys of ambulances in Rafah on 23 March and dug a mass grave to cover the bodies of those killed until the corpses could be retrieved by a UN team six days later. It has disputed allegations from two witnesses who exhumed the bodies and newly released postmortem results that found several of those killed had close-range gunshot wounds to the head and chest and were discovered with their hands or legs tied. Continue reading...

Events