Word: gaza
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Tuesday morning at 8 o'clock is chaos at Rafah Crossing, the Egyptian-controlled entrance to the Gaza Strip. Black-clad Egyptian security forces stand by their trucks, ready if things get out of hand. Aid convoys line up in front of the main gate. Hundreds of Palestinians have already massed before the first checkpoint, yelling at border security in their effort to push through. Off to one side, a group of travelers tries to revive a sick woman who has lost consciousness. Egyptian security look on. Tempers are mounting. This is Day One of a rare three-day border...
Rafah is one of only two operating entry/exit points for human traffic into Hamas-held Gaza - the other is Erez on the border with Israel. Gaza, home to an estimated 1.5 million people, has been under Israeli blockade since June, 2007, when Hamas forces routed loyalists of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel, the United States, and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization. (Read "Behind Hamas' Own War on Terror...
...monitor Al-Mezan, compared to the tens of thousands who traversed the crossing every month when it was operating regularly. According to a March 2009 report by Gisha, an Israeli rights group that tracks border activity, the sporadic openings at Rafah meet the travel needs of only 3% of Gaza's residents...
...Israel continues to exert substantial and indirect control over the possibility of opening Rafah Crossing and uses that control to exert pressure on the residents of Gaza, as part of a policy of collective punishment," the Gisha report says. Egypt, for its part, "which has the physical capacity to open Rafah Crossing," keeps it closed as the result of outside pressure and a desire to keep Islamist Hamas isolated from Egypt's own opposition groups. Indeed, the collusion between Egypt and Israel was evident on Tuesday. Aid convoys entering through Rafah Gate are diverted to Kerem Shalom to be subject...
...year, in its City to City program, the Festival highlights a foreign cinema; and when TIFF chose Tel Aviv as the 2009 city, controversy erupted. "Tel Aviv is the military center of Israel," said Canadian author Naomi Klein, "a place from which fighter jets departed on their missions to Gaza last December-January." Soon it was mandatory for politically active stars to take sides. Sacha Baron Cohen, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Voight and Oprah Winfrey voiced their support for the program; Harry Belafonte, Julie Christie, Jane Fonda and Viggo Mortensen were all for a boycott. Politics aside (which it never...