From Occupied Palestine

Detainee: Shin Bet wants me to be a collaborator
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 5 July 2004

An administrative detainee says the Shin Bet is trying to force him into becoming a collaborator by branding him as one - and are thus endangering his life.

The Shin Bet incarcerated Iyad Milham, 29, with Israeli and Palestinian criminal prisoners, including a Shin Bet collaborator.

Anna Lindh Award: Acceptance speech
AMIRA HASS
Anna Lindh Memorial Fund, 18 June 2004

Stockholm -- The composition of the first sentence of any article or a feature is for me the most difficult, sometimes even agonizing. It's doubly difficult now for me to locate the most suitable first words in this ceremony. After all, this ceremony should have never taken place, the memorial fund never been established, as the life and career and plans of Anna Lindh should have continued normally, should have not been cut so cruelly and abruptly by a murderer.

The occupier is not convinced
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 16 June 2004

The unilateral disengagement plan is also progressing in the West Bank. And, just as in the Gaza Strip, it is less a security disengagement between Israel and the Palestinian areas than it is a political plan for isolating each Palestinian area from every other via a network of fortifications that includes fences, walls, enclaves and settlement expansions.

Rafah's second front
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 14 June 2004

Rafah -- Residents took advantage of the lull last week in IDF attacks on Rafah to try and nip in the bud a blood feud that had erupted between the Lafi and Abu Ghali families. On the morning of Saturday, May 5, several members of the Abu Ghali family severely beat Ibrahim Lafi. Three hours later, Lafi's sons got into two cars and followed a car driven by Rami Abu Ghali. They cut him off by the eastern cemetery near the Brazil neighborhood. Three men got out carrying Kalashnikov rifles and fired into Abu Ghali's car. He was badly wounded and is still hospitalized in Gaza.

Economic pressure to secure control
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 9 June 2004

If Israeli fruit growers and marketers had not protested the closing of Karni Crossing last week, no one in Israel would have noted that this commercial crossing, the Gaza Strip's economic lifeline, had actually been shut down for three weeks.

Palestinian peddler: Border police beat me
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 4 June 2004

A Palestinian peddler said yesterday that he was beaten by a Border Policeman at the entrance to the Qalandiyah roadblock near Jerusalem earlier this week during an operation conducted by Jerusalem city inspectors seeking to disperse unlicensed peddling.

Disengaged from reality
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 2 June 2004

The government hospital in Rafah last week received a donation from a Palestinian NGO - four mortuary refrigerators with room for 24 bodies, in addition to the old refrigerator, which catered for only six bodies. There won't be any need for the macabre photographs of the dead casualties, held a week or more in commercial refrigerators ordinarily used to hold food.

With Karni closed, Palestinians run low on basics
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 31 May 2004

There is a serious shortage of basic foodstuffs and building materials in the Gaza Strip because the Karni cargo crossing has been out of commission since May 11. In the six weeks before it shut down, it operated only partially.

Rafah arms smuggler: Profit overcomes fear
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 25 May 2004

Rafah -- On the eve of the intifada, there were five to seven tunnels for smuggling Egyptian contraband, but more than 30 tunnels have been built over the years since September 2000, according to a Rafah merchant who ran smuggling tunnels to bring in merchandise from Egypt.

How one house is spared destruction
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 24 May 2004

Rafah -- People had hoped to wake up yesterday with news that the tanks and bulldozers had pulled out of the Brazil quarter and that residents of Tel Sultan could finally bury their dead. Instead, Rafah residents were awakened by the roar of tanks rolling closer and closer and the incessant buzz of helicopters. Throughout the day, although with occasional breaks, the air was rent by fire from the tanks and choppers aimed at the Brazil neighborhood and its residents. It was clear that under fire of this type, it would not be possible to hold a single mass funeral.