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