Why Israel will never truly let go of Gaza: Tanya Reinhart, Sep 2006

Ramadan in Gaza: no celebrations due to lack of money for gifts and food
Maan News, September 23, 2006
The morning prayer in Gaza, and the first day of Ramadan fasting, were accompanied by flights of Israeli helicopters. It seems that the absence of salaries has deprived Gaza of the possibility of carrying out suitable preparations for this religious month.

In 9 hours in Gaza, IDF kills 5, including 3 children, and injures 7
Press Release, PCHR, September 21, 2006

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Why Israel Will Never Truly Let Go of Gaza
Tanya Reinhart in The Independent Weekly, Adelaide
September 2006
Whatever the fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israeli army's war in Gaza is not about him. As senior security analyst Alex Fishman reported, the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and was constantly pushing for it, with the goal of destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its government. The army initiated an escalation on June 8 when it assassinated Abu Samhadana, a senior appointee of the Hamas Government, and intensified its shelling of civilians in the Gaza Strip.

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Meron Benvenisti on the Lebanon War and the Palestinian Conflict
No war is compelled by circumstances. In this case, the response and its scale were not at all compulsory. But our response is always the same response, which we then make justify itself, calling it a war for existence. And someone like me, after seventy years of sitting in this country, is quite fed up.

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In the name of security, but not for its sake
Amira Hass, Haaretz, 20/09/2006
"...the Israeli security services are careful to act within the framework of a clear political paradigm: maximum weakening, in every possible way, of the Palestinian national collective, so that it will not be able to realize its goal and establish a state worthy of the name, in accordance with international resolutions."

Detainee Paralyzed During Torture in Israeli Prison
Mustafa Sabri - PNN;
translated by Saed Bannoura, September 20, 2006
Every Palestinian detainee has his own story of the horrors of being held in Israeli detention facilities, but in the case of detainee Luay Al Ashqar, 28, from Saida village, near Tulkarem (in the northern part of the West Bank), the result and the outcome are clearly apparent on his body, which has been paralyzed due to Israeli torture.

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COSATU Congress Adopts Middle East Resolution
September 22, 2006
The 1.8 million strong Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) ended its 9th Congress in Johannesburg yesterday (21st September). A resolution on the Middle East sponsored by the National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA), the Witwatersrand and Eastern Cape regions was unanimously adopted.

Student conference calls for Palestine actions
Simon Cunich, Sydney, GLW, 20/09/06
The September 15 Students for Peace and Justice conference, attended by 50 anti-war activists from universities across Sydney and from Wollongong University, called for a week of campus solidarity actions with the Palestinian people on October 9-13.

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Jewish writer's answer to Israel's question
My Israel Question by Antony Loewenstein
reviewed by Kim Bullimore, Melbourne Palestine Solidarity Network, GLW, 20/09/06.

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The Next Palestinian Struggle
Ramzy Baroud, September 22, 2006
If any peace settlement fails to adhere to the democratic concept, according to which Palestinians wish to govern themselves, then Palestinians should ready themselves for another Oslo-style agreement, imposed from the top and rubber stamped by the PLO's Executive Committee, long-devoid of its democratic principles and dominated by the elitist few.
Ramzy Baroud teaches mass communication at Curtin University of Technology.

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I went to Nablus
Sonja Karkar writing from Nablus, September 20, 2006
I only found out many hours later when we had returned to Jerusalem that Nablus had been closed that night and no one could leave or enter. This was the beginning of some of the most invasive sieges by Israel's military to implement ethnic cleansing. I have since learned that public records have been totally destroyed, ground into the dust by bulldozers, leaving thousands of Palestinians without any evidence of births and deaths or the precious travel documents that allow them to go outside and study or visit relatives. Old records documenting the history of generations of Palestinians from Nablus are gone too. All this to make them non-people, sub-human - without a past or present and certainly no future. How much more must the Palestinians endure in their caged existence before the world says this is enough and tells Israel to stop their relentless torture of a whole people?
Sonja Karkar is an activist with Women for Palestine of Melbourne, Australia.