The Islamisation of Gaza under Hamas is something I’m hearing and seeing. But is it what the people want? The following story by leading local journalist Fares Akram – whose father was murdered by the Israelis during the January war – wrote the following story for Xinhua news service a few days ago: Four men…
Showing all posts tagged Gaza
Gaza: flattened, occupied, sick and rootless
My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey: During a conversation last night in Gaza with a group of 20-something male students, the issue of homosexuality came up. These were university-educated, Muslim men with relatively liberal attitudes but accepting a gay lifestyle was a complete anathema to them. “It’s disgusting,” one said, a Fatah…
Watching the sun go down under siege
This photo was taken by leading Gazan photographer Wissam Nassar… during a beautiful sunset on Gaza’s main harbour last week. I’m standing with my journalist friend Ahmed Tawfiq Aldabba:
Hope lives in Gaza despite siege, desperation and anger
My following essay appeared this week on Mondoweiss: The drive from Gaza City to Khan Younis takes around 40 minutes. The roads are rocky and the landscape barren, with destroyed houses and factories along the way. Cars and donkey-drawn carts populate the road. Last Friday I rode in a battered taxi towards the city to…
Rapping the Gazan world
DARG TeaM GaZa are the Strip’s biggest hip-hop group. I spent tonight with the band, a moderate, feisty, curious and highly intelligent bunch of guys. And soon to (hopefully) launch their Palestinian vision onto the world. The voice of a Gazan generation that is rarely heard in the West. Here’s their recent video, 23 days,…
Palestinian AIDS patients enjoy little care, little mercy
The following story was published in 2006 by my Gazan journalist friend Ahmed Aldabba: The way in which 14-year-old Osama, not his real name, caught the HIV/AIDS virus was unusual, but the reaction of the Palestinian society was not so surprising. “I got the visrus from a blood transfusion when I was 12 years old,”…
Islam under Hamas gets defined
Being in Gaza, it’s clear that a relatively strict interpretation of Islam is growing in public appearance. Many Gazans don’t subscribe to it, but for example it’s very rare to see a woman with her hair uncovered. This report therefore rings true: Senior Hamas officials had claimed, in the wake of Hamas’ June 2007 Gaza…
Most crimes are tolerated
A fascinating post by The Magnes Zionist, written here in Jerusalem, that discusses the ways in which IDF abuse in Gaza and the occupied territories is tolerated by the mainstream of Israeli society: I don’t think that the IDF, under the present circumstances, can be seriously reformed. The problem is not with the IDF; it…