Egypt denies building 'Gaza wall'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Jazeera English
December 10, 2009 - 1:00am

Egypt has denied it is constructing an underground steel barrier along its strip with the Gaza border in an attempt to seal off smuggling tunnels built by Palestinians. Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reported that Egypt was installing a metal wall up to 30 metres deep along the strip used by Palestinians to break the Israeli blockade of the territory. The paper reported that the wall would be nearly 10km long as "impossible to cut or melt".

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Who will save Gaza's children?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Victoria Brittain - December 9, 2009 - 1:00am

Among all the complex and long-term solutions being sought in Copenhagen for averting environmental catastrophe across the world, there is one place where the catastrophe has already happened, but could be immediately ameliorated with one simple political act.

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Did group raise funds for Hamas on college campuses?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by Eric Fingerhut - December 7, 2009 - 1:00am

A U.S. congressman is the latest to call for a Justice Department investigation into whether a pro-Palestinian group has been raising money on college campuses for Hamas. In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) urged a probe into Viva Palestina USA, a humanitarian aid convoy led by British lawmaker George Galloway that brought medical supplies to Gaza last July. Both the Zionist Organization of America and Anti-Defamation League in recent months have urged Holder to investigate reports about the convoy's links to Hamas.

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Gaza borders closed Friday; fuel situation remains critical
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 4, 2009 - 1:00am

Israeli authorities informed Palestinian crossing officials that all transfer points would be closed Friday, continuing the five-day-a-week opening trend at the terminals. Raed Fattouh, Palestinian crossings liaison, said he was told that all crossings would be closed Friday, although they are scheduled to be open. Crossings have not been open Fridays since summer. The closure means food and fuel waiting to enter the Strip will continue to wait in storage containers. Fuel crisis

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Altogether more than a footnote
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Olivia Snaije - December 4, 2009 - 1:00am

The first thing that comes to mind when holding graphic novelist and journalist Joe Sacco’s new book, “Footnotes in Gaza,” is the colossal amount of work that went into it. Not only is this pen-and-ink graphic novel almost 400 pages long, the subject too is heavy: The Israeli military’s massacre of Palestinian civilians in Khan Younis and Rafah (Gaza), during the 1956 Suez Crisis. The Malta-born American researched and reported on the subject for seven years, making two extended trips to Gaza – where he was often under fire from weapons paid for with his tax dollars.

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For Gaza's homeless, holiday is time for despair
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
November 26, 2009 - 1:00am

In the days leading up to Eid al-Adha, Zaid Khadar would usually be buying new clothes for his children and stocking up on traditional foods to celebrate one of the most important dates on the Muslim calendar. Instead, he struggles to shield them from the winter rain dripping through the roof of the shelter that has housed his family since they were made homeless by Israel's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip almost a year ago. "My children are saying: 'Why aren't you bringing us clothes? Why don't you get a sheep to slaughter?'" said Khadar.

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Israel, Egypt squeeze Gaza tunnel business
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
November 20, 2009 - 1:00am

Fearing loss of life and money, Palestinians are abandoning tunnels that supply the blockaded Gaza Strip with everything from food to fridges to weapons. On the Gaza side of the border with Egypt, there is little activity in an area that was once as busy as an industrial zone. Many tunnel workers have concluded that the risk of being buried alive by Israeli bombardment and accidental ground collapses or poisoned by gas pumped underground by Egyptian security forces is just not worth it. Around 100 people have been killed in the past year.

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UN chief calls on Israel to back Gaza reconstruction
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Israel News
October 29, 2009 - 12:00am

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel Wednesday to back the reconstruction of Gaza, deploring conditions there nearly a year after a devastating Israeli military offensive. “Ten months after hostilities ended in Gaza, we see no progress on reconstruction or the re-opening of borders,” he said at a news conference. Ban said 4.5 billion dollars in reconstruction aid had been pledged at a donors conference in Egypt in March but “little if any of that money has been delivered.”

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UN: number of `abject poor' in Gaza triples
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Ben Hubbard - October 2, 2009 - 12:00am

The number of Gazans living in "abject" poverty has tripled this year to 300,000, or one in five residents, the Gaza head of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees said Thursday. Gaza's economy has foundered under an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade imposed after the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007 from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. John Ging, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency's top official in Gaza, called the rise in poverty a "predictable consequence" of the border blockade.

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Netanyahu finally agrees to Sarkozy request to rebuild Gaza hospital
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - September 30, 2009 - 12:00am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally agreed Tuesday to a request by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to rebuild a Gaza hospital damaged during Operation Cast Lead. Netanyahu told Sarkozy by phone Tuesday that he had decided to approve the project as a humanitarian gesture. The premier also said he wished to accommodate Paris due to the "strident stance that France has taken on Iran's nuclear program." Sarkozy made the request during Netanyahu's visit to Paris earlier this year. The hospital in question is Al-Quds Hospital, which is managed by the Red Crescent Society in Gaza.

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