Gazans Suffer As Foreign NGOs Refuse to Deal with Hamas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor
by Omar Shaban - February 18, 2013 - 1:00am

The relationship between international organizations operating in the Gaza Strip and the Hamas government has been marked by tension and distrust. This is especially true, since these organizations have taken the same positions as the West — including the U.S. and Israel — to sever ties with the Hamas government and with any of its affiliated institutions, while at the same time seeking to implement their work in the Gaza Strip.

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Fitting Palestinian prisoners into the excitement of the Ben Zygier affair
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yitzhak Laor - (Opinion) February 18, 2013 - 1:00am

Samer Issawi was sentenced by a military tribunal to nearly three decades in prison, freed after six years in the 2011 prisoner swap that secured the release of Gilad Shalit, and re-arrested in July and sent back to jail for another 20 years because he went from Jerusalem, where he lives, to A-Ram, on the other side of the road. Issawi has been on a saline drip to keep him alive since August.

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Israel arrests brother of Palestinian hunger-striker Issawi
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Ahram
February 17, 2013 - 1:00am

Israeli authorities arrested Shady Issawi, brother of Palestinian hunger-striker Samer Issawi, at dawn from his home, The Free Samer Issawi Campaign's Facebook page reported on Sunday.

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Prisoner in Israeli isolation for 2 years 'forgets speech'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 17, 2013 - 1:00am

A Palestinian man held in solitary confinement by Israel for two years is losing his ability to recall language and has speech impairments, a lawyer who visited him in jail said Sunday. The lawyer for the Palestinian prisoners society said Dirar Abu Sisi, an engineer from Gaza, is suffering from a number of health problems in his isolation cell. Abu Sisi disappeared in February 2011 while traveling on a train in Ukraine and Israel later announced that it was holding him in a southern Israeli jail.

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Israel's Cover-ups
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed - (Opinion) February 16, 2013 - 1:00am

We are usually highly critical of Arab governments, accusing them of being outdated. We also blame them for their rigid commitment to policies of suppression and silence. But then we witness a country, such as Israel, displaying traits that are just as bad as those we have been criticizing. We typically assume Israel is a modern and strong country that can deal with everything in a transparent manner. It has larger universities, larger research centers and more advanced media institutes than us.

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Swedish photographer wins World Press Photo award
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Toby Sterling - February 15, 2013 - 1:00am

Swedish photographer Paul Hansen won the 2012 World Press Photo award Friday for newspaper Dagens Nyheter with a picture of two Palestinian children killed in an Israeli missile strike being carried to their funeral. The picture shows a group of men marching the dead bodies through a narrow street in Gaza City. The victims, a brother and sister, are wrapped in white cloth with only their faces showing.

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Arab MK to raise issue of prison hunger strikes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Ariel Ben Solomon - February 13, 2013 - 1:00am

MK Jamal Zahalka (Balad) is trying to internationalize the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by seeking help from the UN and other countries with regards to the release of four Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike in Israeli jails, he told The Jerusalem Post this week. Zahalka has written a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Last week he sent a letter to Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi via the Egyptian Embassy in Israel.

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UN officials voice concern over health of Palestinian detainees on hunger strike
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from United Nations News Service
February 13, 2013 - 1:00am

Two senior United Nations officials today voiced their concern about Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody, particularly following reports of the fast deteriorating health conditions of several who have been on hunger strike.

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British surgeons carry out first organ transplants in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - February 7, 2013 - 1:00am

A team of British surgeons has carried out Gaza's first organ transplants as a pilot for a long-term plan to train local medical staff to perform the operations. Two patients underwent kidney transplants at the Shifa, Gaza's biggest public hospital, which is beset by overcrowding, chronic power cuts and shortages of drugs and equipment. The operations were conducted a fortnight ago by a volunteer medical team from the Royal Liverpool hospital.

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The Role of Psychological Resistance
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post
by Alon Ben-Meir - (Opinion) February 7, 2013 - 1:00am

Brief Synopsis: The most puzzling aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that after 65 years of mutual violence, enmity and suffering, it remains unresolved even when coexistence is inevitable and a two-state solution remains the only viable option. Although there are many contentious issues that must be specifically addressed, it is the psychological dimension of the conflict which directly impacts every conflicting issue and makes it increasingly intractable.

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