End the catastrophe imposed on the Palestinian people!

Painting depicting the Nakba by Palestinian artist Ismail Shammout.

May 15 marks the 72nd anniversary of Al Nakba — the Catastrophe — a day marking a “continuous journey of pain, loss and injustice” for the Palestinian people. It marks the day that some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war. Palestinians were forced from their lands and homes due to military attacks by Zionist forces, supported by the British and U.S. governments. The Israeli Zionist forces attacked 774 cities and villages, and occupied 80 per cent of the Palestinian soil after killing nearly 15,000 Muslim and Christian civilians. Those who survived were forced to migrate to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and neighbouring countries, such as Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

Palestinian statistics

Students in a Gaza school. Thomas Koehler / Photothek via G

By AMIRA HASS

75,150 students in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including Jerusalem) took the Palestinian matriculation exams and 52,108 (69.34 percent) passed. The success rate for the literature track, in which 47,467 students were tested, was 64.1 percent; in the sciences, 19,724 students took the exams and 83.63 percent passed. The results were announced Thursday. In other areas, such as business and entrepreneurship, sharia and vocational tracks, where few students were tested, the pass rate was about 60 percent.

The matriculation is one important area where the institutional split between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has failed, thank God, and identical exams were administered in both places.

Plenty of fish in Gaza sea, but not for Palestinians

Palestinian fisherman Jihad al-Soltan (R) pulls his fishing net on a beach, Gaza, Aug. 21, 2017 | Reuters/Mohammed Salem

Entsar Abu Jahal, Al-Monitor.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (June 14) — In a dangerous development June 12, Israel announced a full naval closure on the Gaza Strip until further notice, denying Palestinian fishermen access to the sea. Israel said it took the measure in response to the continued firing of incendiary balloons at Israeli settlements by protesters in the ongoing “right of return” marches.

Child killers: Condemned by their own words

This transcript of an Israeli General on an Israeli radio station (begins 6.52 in) defending the killing by Israeli army snipers in April 2018 of a 14-year-old boy, who posed no threat of any kind, is much more powerful if you just read it than any analysis I can give. The Israeli occupation forces have arrested 16.500 Palestinian children and girls since the year 2000.

Brigadier-General (Res.) Zvika Fogel interviewed on the Yoman Hashevua program of Israel’s Kan radio, 21 April 2018.

101st anniversary of Balfour Declaration

Join Palestinians in demanding the implementation of the right of return! End the Zionist occupation of Palestinian lands!

Mississauga picket on 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, November 2017.

November 2 marked the 101st anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a 1917 letter sent by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to a prominent British Zionist leader promising land in Palestine for foreign settlement.

Israeli forces wound more than 70 Palestinians at Gaza border protest

An Israeli military spokeswoman said about 10,000 demonstrators massed at the border and that some threw burning tyres, grenades and explosive devices at the troops across the fence. About 30 Palestinians suffered tear gas inhalation, the Gaza health ministry said.

Palestinian demonstrators gather at the Israel-Gaza border fence during a protest calling for lifting the Israeli blockade on Gaza and demanding the right to return to their homeland, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 19, 2018 | Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

What happens when both the Canadian media and government ignore the ongoing killing of Palestinians in Gaza?

Eleven-year-old Naser Musabeh was the latest (and the youngest) Palestinian protester to be killed in Gaza by Israeli snipers. Six others were killed and over 90 injured by rifle fire on Friday.  It’s hard to imagine the IDF thought that Naser represented a threat to Israel. The killings were all but ignored by Canadian media. And not mentioned at all by Canadian government officials. 

Bloody Friday as Gaza marks six months of protests

Paramedics carry an injured protester during Great March of Return demonstrations east of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on September 28 | Ashraf AmraAPA images

Palestinian youth defy Israel’s blockade with scraps of paper and plastic

By JONATHAN COOK

First Israel built a sophisticated missile interception system named Iron Dome to neutralise the threat of homemade rockets fired out of Gaza.

Next it created technology that could detect and destroy tunnels Palestinians had cut through the parched earth deep under the fences Israel erected to imprison Gaza on all sides.

Israel’s priority was to keep Gaza locked down with a blockade and its two million inhabitants invisible.

Now Israel is facing a new and apparently even tougher challenge: how to stop Palestinian resistance from Gaza using flaming kites, which have set fire to lands close by in Israel. F-16 fighter jets are equipped to take on many foes but not the humble kite.

‘Deal of the century’ is not new and Palestinian Authority leadership is not a victim

Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” will fail. Palestinians will not exchange their 70-year long struggle for freedom for Jared Kushner’s cash; nor will Israel accept it even if there is a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank | RAMZY BAROUD

Protest in Ramallah, July 2, 2018, against U.S. “peace plan”

Palestine Resistance movement will never submit to imperialist schemes

Fifteenth consecutive weekly Great March of Return protest at the border between Gaza and Israel, July 6, 2018.

The Palestinian people’s heroic resistance to the Zionist occupation remains steadfast, as the Israeli provocations continue despite their broad condemnation as crimes against humanity. The Great March of Return protests at the border between Gaza and Israel demanding the right of return have continued since Land Day on March 30. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported on July 4 that 144 Palestinians have been killed and 15,501 others have been injured by the Israeli military.

Israeli forces wound scores of women in Gaza rally

The protest was the first mass women’s demonstration to take place in the strip since March 30 | Adel Hana/AP

 (July 3) – At least 134 Palestinians have been wounded by Israeli gunfire as thousands of Palestinian women demonstrated along the heavily fortified fence with Israel in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Open letter to Derek Stoffel, CBC Middle East Bureau chief

From: Peter Larson <peter.larson@sympatico.ca>
Sent: May 26, 2018 9:36 AM
To: ‘derek.stoffel@cbc.ca‘ <derek.stoffel@cbc.ca>
Cc: ‘jennifer.mcguire@cbc.ca‘ <jennifer.mcguire@cbc.ca>; ‘jack.nagler@cbc.ca‘ <jack.nagler@cbc.ca>
Subject: Open letter to Mr. Derek Stoffel, CBC Correspondent in Jerusalem, about his coverage of the Palestinian protests in Gaza

Along the Gaza border, they shoot medics (too), don’t they?

An ambulance a minute, 1,300 people shot in a day: Gaza’s Shifa Hospital faces crises that would swamp the world’s best hospitals | AMIRA HASS

Palestinian paramedics in Gaza | SAID KHATIB/AFP

(May 28) – Any healthcare system in the West would collapse if it had to treat as many gunshot wounds in a single day as there were in the Gaza Strip on May 14, say international medical figures. Yet Gaza’s medical system, which for years has been on the brink of collapse as a result of the Israeli blockade and Palestinian internecine conflict, coped amazingly well with the challenge. In Israel, the events of May 14 are already history. In the Strip, their bloody consequences will shape the lives of thousands of families for years to come.

Sighting. Worldwide protests against Israeli crimes and US inauguration of illegal embassy

TML Weekly published an extensive photo review of actions throughout Canada and around the world against Israeli crimes and the US inauguration of an illegal embassy in Jerusalem. The feature, the second in two weeks, helps break the disinformation by the media on the massive protests by the Palestinian people, the savage response by the Israeli armed forces and on the important questions of war and peace in the world.

70th Anniversary of Al Nakba: ‘Great March of Return’ boldly affirms Palestinians’ right of return to their homeland

The Great March of Return begins on Land Day March 30, 2018.

The Great March of Return, that began on Land Day (March 30) will shortly culminate on May 15, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Al Nakba (the catastrophe). On May 15, 1948 the Zionist state of Israel was established on the basis of the dispossession and mass expulsion of the Palestinian people.  Today, the Palestinian people face ongoing occupation and increasing encroachment and dispossession by the Zionists. The Great March of Return is a bold affirmation of the Palestinian people’s right to resist and right of return to their homeland, as enshrined in international law.