Summer Camp Of Destruction

August 3rd, 2010 • Awareness, News
Tags: Bedouin, camp, children, cleansing, demolition, house, Negev, students, summer, trauma

Max Blumenthal:

Israeli High Schoolers Assist The Razing Of A Bedouin Town

AL-ARAKIB, ISRAEL — On July 26, Israeli police demolished 45 buildings in the unrecognized Bedouin village of al-Arakib, razing the entire village to the ground to make way for a Jewish National Fund forest. The destruction was part of a larger project to force the Bedouin community of the Negev away from their ancestral lands and into seven Indian reservation-style communities the Israeli government has constructed for them. The land will then be open for Jewish settlers, including young couples in the army and those who may someday be evacuated from the West Bank after a peace treaty is signed. For now, the Israeli government intends to uproot as many villages as possible and erase them from the map by establishing “facts on the ground” in the form of JNF forests.

One of the most troubling aspects of the destruction of al-Arakib was a report by CNN that the hundreds of Israeli riot police who stormed the village were accompanied by “busloads of cheering civilians.” Who were these civilians and why didn’t CNN or any outlet investigate further?

Read more at MaxBlumenthal.com…

Video of the demolition

UNRWA rebuilds first house in Gaza

December 19th, 2009 • News
Tags: gaza, house, rebuild, unrwa

China’s Xinhua news agency reports that it’s only take 12 months for UNRWA rebuild the first house:

The house that UNRWA built

Due to an Israeli blockade, construction materials are not available in Gaza and the new house was built of mud bricks.

The clay house will not be an everlasting alternative to al-Athamna’s apartment building that housed tens of his family members, but compared to his neighbors who still live in tents, the 75-year-old grandfather is very satisfied.

“I thank the UNRWA and call upon the entire world to keep funding the UNRWA so it can help all people in need and build them a house like the one I received today,” he said.

Read more…

President Jimmy Carter writes in The Guardian, “We can wait no longer to restart the peace process. The human suffering demands urgent relief”

Carter at Wadi Fuqeen Village

… Of more immediate concern, those under siege in Gaza face another winter of intense personal suffering. I visited Gaza after the devastating January war and observed homeless people huddling in makeshift tents, under plastic sheets, or in caves dug into the debris of their former homes. Despite offers by Palestinian leaders and international agencies to guarantee no use of imported materials for even defensive military purposes, cement, lumber, and panes of glass are not being permitted to pass entry points into Gaza. The US and other nations have accepted this abhorrent situation without forceful corrective action.

Read more…