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Report of the SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territorimes occupied since 1967 --Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2nd Session, document symbol: A/HRC/2/5 -- 09.05.2006

'74. This report does not make pleasant reading. Israel is in violation of important norms of human rights and international humanitarian law. While it is readily conceded that Israel faces a security threat and is entitled to defend itself, it must not be forgotten that the root cause of the security threat is the continued occupation of a people that wishes to exercise its right of self-determination in an independent State.' (.read the entire report)

The Peacekeeping Mission in Lebanon

On the ‘Muddle East’ scene, the latest news is that a multinational force is being deployed in the south of Lebanon under the insignia of the United Nations and the terms of UNSC resolution 1701 . The weeks leading to the launch of UNIFIL 2 – named after the UNIFIL mission of 1978 - were characterised by reservations concerning the mandate of mission, considered ambiguous, and by a diffuse misreading of the role of peacekeepers. (more)

The war in Lebanon. An Analysis

On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah, the Shia armed group based in the south of Lebanon, launched a military operation against Israel. In the attack, two Israeli soldiers were abducted and seven were killed . Israel, which said it considered the assault/abduction an act of war, swiftly responded initiating operation ‘Just Reward’, massively bombing areas in the south of the country and also in Beirut, the capital of the Levantine state. Hezbollah’s counter reaction, the launching of rockets into some northern Israeli cities including Haifa, prompted Israel to unfold a full scale war, the sixth one in the history of the fifty-eight year old Israeli – Arab conflict (more)

A week in AlAmari (refugee camp)

While in Jerusalem, I was invited to spend ten days with a family living in Al-Amari refugee camp, near the city of Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine. I went there alone and in a very ‘personal capacity’, introduced to the family by a friend who took me there and then returned to the Holy city. (more)

The crisis in Gaza. First week

On Sunday, June 25, members of Hamas' military wing killed two Israeli soldiers and captured one during a cross-border raid in the Kerem Shalom base, in the south of Israel. On Tuesday 27, Israeli responded sending IDF units to the Gaza Strip with the official goal of rescuing Corporal Gilead Shilat. On the same day, however, Israeli forces arrested dozens of Hamas cabinet ministers and lawmakers, suggesting that the Israeli incursion could go beyond the incursion's stated purpose ,rescuing the kidnapped soldier, and involve a direct attack against members of the Hamas-led PA government. (more)

Situation in the Palestinian territories

The Gaza crisis is taking place in the backdrop of a situation that in Gaza and in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, is worsening day after day. (more)

The Samaritans of Mt.Gerizim

If you are a Christian visiting Nablus, from the very moment you find out that in the city there is a community of Samaritans, the reassuring image of the good Samaritan comes to your mind and there it lingers. And you don't know why it is so, beacuse you actually never knew a thing about the Samaritans and never saw one in your lifetime. In fact, the Samaritans form one of the oldest and smallest religious communities in the world. They are 650 altogether and they are all concentrated in the Holy Land. Half of them live in the area of Neve Marka, in Holon near Tel Aviv, Israel, while the other half inhabits the Samaritans’ holiest place on earth, which for once is not city, but a mount: Mount Gerizim, in Nablus, Occupied Palestinian Territories. (more)

The problem of the financial support to the Palestinian people

While Palestinian coalition-building efforts were underway, on 27 February 2005 the EU decided to free €120 million in favour of the Palestinian Government through the good offices of the World Bank Trust Fund. Out of the financial package, €40 million were allocated to the Israeli government in order to cover the Palestinian Authority's electricity bills; some €64 million went to finance health and education projects, mostly managed by UNRWA; €17.5 million covered PA's employees' salaries....(more)

Why did Hamas win?

Arguably, Hamas won because Palestinians were exasperated by Fatah's corruption and incompetence. Fatah's leaders, who run the PA since it was founded in 1993, have built a system of cronyism and nepotism which enriched few and left ordinary citizens living in dire conditions. Such a system was essentially based on the atomization of security forces. Having the monopoly of military force, the leaders of the security units acted as lords of territorial districts in the land administered by the PA, often fighting against each other for supremacy. Moussa Arafat, cousin of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, is the latest famous victim of the power struggle between rival Palestinian factions that has been shattering the Palestinian Authority. Despite reiterated calls for reforms from the international community and donors, Fatah leaders and members always refused to comply....(more)