Israel should face international justice
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Gulf News
by George S. Hishmeh - (Opinion) February 4, 2010 - 1:00am

Much as the world has responded generously to assist Haitians after their devastating earthquake last month, the opposite has been true about the impoverished Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who have been under an increasingly debilitating siege since the Israeli blitz a little over a year ago.

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Forum seeks ways of bringing Gaza Strip back to life
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by David Lepeska - January 21, 2010 - 1:00am

More than a year after Israel’s extensive bombing campaign, life inside the Gaza Strip is growing increasingly desperate. Four out of five Gazans depend on some form of foreign aid. Lorries carrying medical supplies are often refused entry by Israeli officials, who enforce a three-year-old blockade of the Strip. Sick and dying patients face weeks-long delays for permission to leave for necessary treatment. Education is lagging, as nearly half of Gaza’s schools remain damaged, and unemployment stands at 40 per cent, according to a December report from the United Nations.

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Israel eases ban on Gaza's strawberry exports
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Erin Cunningham - January 20, 2010 - 1:00am

In a rare easing of its now 18-month-long economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, Israel is allowing a limited amount of produce and fresh-cut flowers to be exported from the territory this season , including one of its most important cash crops, the Gaza strawberry.

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Abbas: Gaza's suffering is our suffering
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
January 1, 2010 - 1:00am

Bethlehem – Ma’an – President Mahmoud Abbas vowed on Thursday to spare no effort in supporting Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. “Your suffering is ours – we will continue supporting you. We will offer every possible means of support,” he said, speaking at a ceremony in Ramallah marking the 45th anniversary of the founding of his Fatah movement. He touted the role of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) in supporting Gazans. He said the PA still pays the salaries of 77,000 employees in Gaza, devoting 55% of its budget to the territory.

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Rock by rock, Gaza slowly rebuilds
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Erin Cunningham - December 31, 2009 - 1:00am

In a rare scene in a territory where industry has all but collapsed, a Palestinian worker in the Gaza Strip pounds on fractured slabs of destroyed buildings with a shoddy hammer, dumping the fragments into a machine that then crushes and spits the gravel into a bin. Subsequently mixed with the odd bag of smuggled cement, the rubble of Gaza is transformed by this flagship factory in the north into flimsy but lucrative bricks now used to patch some of the enclave’s war-damaged houses.

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Smuggling fuels Gaza's stalled economy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News
by Heather Sharp - December 31, 2009 - 1:00am

The day Israel launched its 22-day offensive on Gaza , a year ago, Osama and his family lost most of their $70,000 life savings. The Gaza accountant, who gives only his first name, had put his money into a local investment scheme - even selling an apartment and his wife's jewelry to do so. The scheme initially produced excellent returns, which Osama understood came from trade through the smuggling tunnels from Egypt to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

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Gaza: where there’s a will to help, there’s a way
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
December 31, 2009 - 1:00am

ABU DHABI // This week, a convoy of 18 ambulances completed a long and arduous journey from Abu Dhabi to the Gaza Strip. The “caravan of ambulances”, as the UAE Red Crescent Authority’s secretary general adviser, Dr Saleh al Taei, described the convoy, set off from the capital to Jeddah, then sailed to the Egyptian port of Nuweiba, before moving on to Al Arish and finally to Rafah on the Gaza-Egyptian border.

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Cruel onslaught on Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Linda Heard - (Opinion) December 30, 2009 - 1:00am

Sunday, the 27th of December, marked one year since Israel’s military launched Operation Cast Lead that robbed the lives of more than 1,400 Palestinians including 318 children, leaving 5,300 wounded. The cruel onslaught on Gaza that relentlessly continued until Jan. 18, 2009, destroyed United Nations facilities, hospitals, schools, ministerial buildings and 3,500 houses, leaving 20,000 homeless.

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Hamas's rhetoric of resistance masks new stance a year after Gaza war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Rory McCarthy - December 28, 2009 - 1:00am

When Hamas held its annual anniversary celebrations in the centre of Gaza City it looked like a defiant and celebratory show. There was a male choir in camouflage fatigues singing on the stage, a sea of green flags in the crowd and wave after wave of self-congratulatory chanting: "Far and wide, Hamas is shaking the ground." A year after Israel's devastating three-week war in Gaza, the Palestinian Islamist movement which controls the strip is still very much in charge and unbowed.

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Israel-Hamas deal on Gilad Shalit won't include an end to Gaza blockade
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Erin Cunningham - December 22, 2009 - 1:00am

Israel is abuzz with a flurry of media reports on a possibly imminent prisoner exchange that could return captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to his parents after more than three years of captivity under Hamas. The deal would also release up to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, but Gazans are dismayed that a major condition Israel had previously said was linked to any Shalit deal now appears to be missing from the negotiations: Israel’s two-year economic blockade on the Gaza Strip.

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