News Highlights:

• August 16th – four Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza.
• August 15th – Palestinian teenager Mohammed Al Fayoumi wounded in Nablus during raid on Balata refugee camp.
• Palestinian prisoners start massive hunger strike on August 15th, to draw attention to the appalling conditions in the Israeli jails. Their demands include an end to strip searches and isolation, more family visits, improved health facilities.
• Families of the prisoners set up solidarity tents in major Palestinian cities and in Red Cross Centres.
• Israel launches a psychological war against the prisoners by using barbecues and eating in front of the prisoners.
• Israel’s security minister says the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike can starve “until death”.

Feature:

The feature was a cultural tribute to the martyrs of the Tel AlZaatar refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, which was overrun in August 1976 by Lebanese fascist forces. The feature highlighted the famous poem by Mahmoud Darweesh, Ahmed Zaatar, which represented the perpetual exile and betrayal of the Palestinian people by forces from within and outside the Arab world. Excerpts of an open letter from the people of Zaatar themselves, sent in July 1976 while the camp was under siege, were also presented.

Focus on Zionism:

Excerpts of an article from the Haaretz Israeli newspaper, detailing the construction of a 1000 new housing units in settlements on the West Bank. Peace Now was quoted as saying – “The boss has gone mad. Sharon … is carrying out massive occupation.”

News Highlights:

• Aug. 10th – Israeli soldiers bulldoze heritage buildings in Hebron to construct settler road.
• Aug. 8th – elderly Palestinian man dies at Rafah border crossing.
• Aug. 8th – Israel authorizes construction of hundreds of new homes in West Bank settlements; Peace Now says Israeli government “acting like thieves in the night”.
• Aug. 8th – former Israeli Mossad director says the Israeli military has lost its military ethics and is “soulless and merciless”.
• Aug. 5th – Israeli troops kill 10-year-old Palestinian boy during raid on northern Gaza.
• Israeli human rights group, Btselem, says Israeli policies on closing roads to Palestinians in the West Bank are “a racist directive”; release report detailing the “reign of forbidden roads”.

Feature:

An interview with Laith Marouf from Concordia University and a member of Solidarity with Palestinian Human Rights, student activist group. Laith talked about his experiences at Concordia and how the administration had attempted unsuccessfully to expel him three times for his activist work. Laith also does a radio show on the campus station entitled “Under the Olive Tree”. Laith is traveling to B.C. to do a documentary on the native struggle at Sun Peaks and spoke movingly of the bonds between the Palestinian people and the First Nations people.

Focus on Zionism:

Highlights of an Aug. 4th press release from Addameer, the Palestinian prisoner rights group, about the arrest and administrative detention of their chairman.

News Highlights:

• Aug 3rd – three Palestinians killed by two Israeli missiles in southern Gaza and Reuters cameraman also wounded.
• July 30st – Israeli soldiers open fire on a funeral in Khan Younis, killing a 12 year-old boy.
• Palestinian Education Ministry reports that many schools have been crippled in the past year due to curfews and lack of freedom of movement; Nablus and Hebron particularly hard hit, where some schools have been turned into army bases.
• United Nations report says two million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza living in poverty and 42% of families are destitute.
• Palestinian NGOs warn of disaster at the Rafah border crossing, which Israel has completely sealed off.
• Leaders of the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US vote to join the divestment campaign against Israel.

Feature:

An Eyewitness Palestine, featuring two “Dispatches from the Homeland” by Mike Odetalla, a Palestinian-American journalist and activist currently in Palestine. He detailed the daily despair that takes place at the many Israeli checkpoints around the West Bank, and especially the effect on Palestinian children.

Focus on Zionism:

Highlights of a letter published by the Guardian newspaper from Jocelyn Hurndall, the mother of the British student murdered by Israeli soldiers.

News Highlights:

• July 26th – Israeli settlers take over an “unauthorized outpost” near Hebron/AlKhalil, chanting racist slogans.
• July 26th – Israeli soldiers take over a rooftop in Beit Awwa near Hebron/AlKhalil injuring a Palestinian child.
• July 25th – A 13-year old Palestinian girl is killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza as she was playing soccer with friends. A 50-year old Palestinian woman is also shot dead in southern Gaza in a separate incident.
• July 25th – 6 Palestinians are assassinated in Tulkarem by Israeli undercover unit.
• July 24th – The Israeli army prevented over 1000 peaceful Palestinian and international protestors from entering ar-Ram enroute to a Jerusalem Day demo.
• The protest had been organized by International Solidarity Movement as part of their Summer Campaign which will conclude with a 21-day march along the route of the apartheid wall.

Feature:

An in studio discussion about the increasing chaos in Gaza, and the possible consequences and outcomes. Panelists explained how the unrest was mainly the result of an increasing split within Fateh, the largest Palestinian group, although popular unrest and dissatisfaction with the Palestinian Authority was also a factor. Israeli analysts have noted that the Israeli, American and Egyptian governments are all supporting one of the factions within Fateh. Uri Avnery, the progressive Israeli author, commented – “The strategy of Sharon and his generals is simple and brutal: to destroy the Palestinian Authority…disintegrate Palestinian society and drive the survivors from the country…in a slow, continuous, creeping process”.

Focus on Zionism:

Highlights of an article by the Israeli journalist, Amira Hass, entitled Living Beside the Checkpoints. She details the daily grind and humiliation undergone by Palestinians – elderly, children, the ill – at the checkpoints around Nablus.

News Highlights:

• Chaos in Gaza as kidnappings and popular unrest lead to instability; Palestinian NGOs and other figures call on the Palestinian Authority to take action and institute reform.
• Today, Palestinian PM Ahmed Qorei withdraws his resignation, submitted three days earlier due to the situation in Gaza.
• The U.N. General Assembly delays its vote on measures needed to implement the International Court ruling on Israel’s apartheid wall due to EU haggling on the wording.
• The Israeli cabinet extends the law Amnesty International has deemed racist that forbids Palestinians married to Israeli citizens from obtaining their spouse’s citizenship.
• Canadian Arab Federation criticizes the restrictions placed on the distribution of Al Jazeera in Canada.
• U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit Egypt to thank the Egyptian government for their role in “mediating” between Israel and Palestine, after calling Egypt a crucial American partner in the region.

Feature:

A live interview with Jeff Halper in Jerusalem, the coordinator of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions. Jeff was on a speaking tour of Canada several years ago with Salim Sharwarmeh who had his home demolished four times. Jeff updated listeners on the situation with Salim’s home which was rebuilt again and is now a “Peace Center”. Jeff also talked about the situation with the apartheid wall and in particular the suffering it is causing to Palestinians in and around the Jerusalem area.

Focus on Zionism:

Highlights of a July 19th report by the Palestinian Prisoners Society, detailing the abuse of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prison hospitals. Eyewitness accounts given to lawyers spoke about the medical negligence and outright abuse inflicted on the 200 hospitalized prisoners, abuse by both Israeli wardens and the hospital staff.