UN ready to work with “any Palestinian government” under Abbas
Serry was speaking at the university’s law school and international relations department on “The UN and the Middle East Peace Process,” the diplomat said “ending the occupation and seeing the creation of two states living side by side in peace and security is [the] only way forward and our international responsibility. We cannot give up because no Palestinian state has emerged so far.”
For full article, visit http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=37336
150 thousand Gazans still without tap water
Monther Shoblak, director-general of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, estimates that 50,000 people lack tap water after losing their homes and that a further 100,000 have no running water because of damage caused to the water network. Six wells were completely destroyed in the bombing campaign and another eleven are not functioning.
Severe bombing damage to waste-water treatment plants in the Beit Hanoun and Zeitoun areas of Gaza City have added to the difficulties. For 20 nearly three weeks untreated raw sewage was discharged into the surrounding land, contaminating groundwater.
For full article, visit http://www.imemc.org/article/59823
UN to Israel: Ease ‘devastating’ Gaza blockade
“It’s wholly and totally inadequate,” John Ging, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, said about the amount of goods Israel permits into the territory, where some 1.5 million Palestinians live.
For full article, visit http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1076282.html
Israeli envoy gets UN post despite Arab opposition
Arab envoys were made aware several days earlier of the European bloc’s intention to put forward Carmon as their candidate, leading led to intensive efforts on their part to foil the bid.
The Arab envoys sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in which they wrote of their objection to the representative of an “occupying state” being elected as the head of an important UN body.
For full article, visit http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1076294.html
UN: 70% of Palestinian youth oppose violence to resolve conflict with Israel
The study also found out that more than 80 percent of young Palestinians are depressed, and 47 percent identify themselves as Muslim rather than Palestinian. It found that 39 percent were “extremely” depressed and 42 percent were depressed by their conditions. Depression was more marked in the Gaza Strip where 55 per cent said they were “extremely” depressed.
When asked to define their identity, 47 percent identified themselves as Muslims, 28 per cent as Palestinians, 14 percent as humans and 10 per cent as Arabs.
For full article, visit http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1075465.html
Israel may have deliberately attacked sewage infrastructure
During the Israeli attack in January, there was a breach in one of the earthen embankment walls of a sewage containment lagoon in Gaza due to some form of Israeli military activity resulting in a large sewage flood.
Although the incident was only reported recently, it was evident from a United Nations analysis of QuickBird satellite images taken from space on 16 January, and confirmed by photos taken by a UN Environmental Program team on the ground in Gaza on 30 January, was an outflow from a sewage lagoon in Sheikh Ejleen, next to the main wastewater treatment plant in Gaza City.
To see a map outlining the damage caused by the sewage treatment plant click here.
For full article, visit http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10433.shtml
Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture: “Apartheid and Occupation under International Law” with John Dugard
While international law tolerates military occupation, it does not approve it, specifically one that has continued for over 40 years as in the case of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Furthermore, during that time, Israel has introduced two other elements—colonialism and apartheid. Although there are many similarities between apartheid as it was applied in South Africa and Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the systems are not identical. There are features of the Israeli regime in the occupied territory that were unknown to South Africans. This year’s Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture was delivered by Professor John Dugard.
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Source: http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/5191/pid/3584
Israeli authorities open Kerem Shalom and Nahal Oz crossings
According to Raed Fattuh, chair of the Gazan Committee for the Entry of Goods, Israel partially opened the Kerem Shalom crossing to let in 115 truckloads, 11 of them filled with humanitarian aid for the UN and other agencies.
For full article, visit http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=36750
UN envoy: Israel must hand over maps of cluster bomb locations
Between July 12 and August 14, 2006, the final days of the war with Israel that summer, the Jewish state’s armed forces dropped about one million cluster bomblets on southern Lebanon, according to UN estimtes. So far local and international deminers in southern Lebanon have cleared about 155,000 cluster bomblets, while more than 320 people have been killed or maimed by cluster bomb explosions since the end of the 2006 conflict.
For full article, visit http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=100441
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