Egypt to supply power for Gaza Strip - official daily --- AND OTHER ASSOCIATED ARTICLES

Egypt to supply power for Gaza Strip - official daily --- AND OTHER ASSOCIATED ARTICLES

The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

Gaza evacuees plead for study to track increased illnesses

Tovah Lazaroff , THE JERUSALEM POST


Mar. 24, 2008

Gaza evacuees who have watched their medical problems grow in the last 30 months pleaded with parliamentarians on Monday to authorize and fund a proper study to investigate the matter.

"What we know is that today more people need treatment than they did before the Gaza evacuation in August 2005," said Ronit Shoham, a social worker who advises the evacuees.

The increase can be found in both physiological and psychological ailments, she told the State Control subcommittee that deals with Gaza evacuees.

She relied in her report on information provided by doctors and nurses who work with the Gaza evacuees.

Sody Naimer, a physician who works in Ein Tzurim with evacuees and is himself from the former Neveh Dekalim settlement, said that initial information showed a six percent increase in overall medical problems.

Before the evacuation, 88 percent of the population was healthy; today that number has dropped to 82%, said Naimer.

Specifically, he said, there was an increase in four diseases: high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular problems.

Out of a sample population of 1,947, Naimer said, the number of cancer cases had risen from 23 to 47. The data already exists to properly analyze the problem, said Naimer.

So far the health funds had refused to provide the information and the Health Ministry had not agreed to a formal study, he said.

At Monday's meeting a Health Ministry representative said that there was no money available at present for such a study.

Initial figures mentioned at the meeting indicated that the cost could be as high as NIS 3-6 million.

MK Zevulun Orlev (National Union-NRP), who heads the State Control Committee, said the matter "had to be dealt with" and promised to push for a medical study.





The Daily Star wishes for its readers a Happy Easter.
We will resume publishing on Tuesday, March 25.



Egypt to supply power for Gaza Strip - official daily
By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Saturday, March 22, 2008

CAIRO: Egypt will become the main supplier of electricity to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, which now depends mainly on Israel for its power supplies, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram said on Friday. "Egypt has decided to implement a project aiming to increase its provision of electricity to the Gaza Strip from 17 to 150 megawatts, in order to give relief to the Palestinians," the pro-government newspaper said.

It did not say when this would start.

The impoverished strip, home to some 1.5 million Palestinians, is currently at the mercy of the Jewish state for its energy supplies and has been submitted to electricity cuts and a tight blockade since Hamas seized power last June.

A senior official from Egypt's Electricity Ministry, cited by the daily, said the Islamic Development Bank had agreed a loan of $32.5 million to finance the project which would link the Egyptian town of Al-Arish, in Sinai, with Gaza.

At present, a power line from Egypt provides Gaza with between five and 10 percent of its electricity needs, following a June 2006 agreement with the Palestinians aiming to cut their dependence on Israel.

In normal times, Israel provided nearly 120 megawatts to Gaza, which since 2004 also relied on the Jewish state for vehicle fuel supplies and fuel to feed their sole 140 megawatt power plant.

But since the Islamist movement Hamas seized the Strip, Israel reduced its fuel supplies and imposed power cuts in retaliation for Palestinian rocket attacks in the south of the country.

Al-Ahram said that Egyptian Oil Minister Sameh Fahmi has issued "urgent" directives for his country to provide natural gas as quickly as possible to Gaza. He was also reported as saying Cairo would help develop Palestinian gas fields discovered offshore from Gaza, after meeting Omar Kittaneh, the Palestinian Authority's official responsible for energy. – AFP










freep.com

Detroit Free Press
FROM OUR READERS

Israeli ideals don't match the reality

March 24, 2008

In response to the March 17 letter to the editor from Robert Cohen, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Metropolitan Detroit ("Israel defends diversity"): I used to live in Ashkelon, Israel, and commute to Gaza. Israel may claim to be a democracy, but it is not. It awards carte blanche citizenship to every Jew in the world, regardless of where that person was born, yet it refuses re-entry and citizenship to Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948.

I used to work with Palestinians born in Ashkelon. They were never allowed even to visit my home there for dinner.

Democracy is far more than a vote, and by such a sham, people like Cohen do Free Press readers a disservice. The irony here is that the Israeli press is far more vibrant, free and diverse in its coverage of the Israeli occupation than is our free press.

Ian Gillis
Grosse Pointe Park

Two occupiers

There are two parallel situations in the world today in which a colonial occupier is being confronted by an indigenous uprising: Tibet, with Chinese occupation, and Israel/Palestine, with the Israeli occupation.

The difference in reporting these issues is stunning. Palestinian resistance is termed "terrorist," despite the international recognition of the legitimacy of their claims; Tibetans are not. While the Tibetan situation is considered crystal clear, the Palestinian situation is "very complicated."

Karin Brothers
Toronto

Condemn attacks on Israel

Israel's efforts to make peace are too often met by terrorism against its innocent men, women and children. There should be no doubt that Israel has the absolute right to defend itself by striking back at the terrorists. The moderate voices in the Arab world must speak out to condemn these murderous acts.

Judi Schram
President, Greater Detroit Chapter of Hadassah, West Bloomfield

Talk to non-Jews who know

Was Robert Cohen being serious? Systematic discrimination of non-Jews in Israel has even been acknowledged by Israelis themselves. I invite Cohen and others with a star-struck tone about Israel to spend time with non-Jews who have lived there. It is hardly the paradise that is portrayed by supporters of Israel.

Sherri Muzher
Woodhaven

Israel defends itself

Too often, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may seem like a vicious circle of violence, an eye-for-an-eye that ultimately leaves both sides blind and the international community apathetic at best -- and anti-Israeli at worst -- mistaking victim for aggressor.

There is a sequence of events, not a cycle of violence, that can be stopped at a moment's notice by the Palestinians.

In August 2006, Israel pulled out of Gaza, dismantling settlements down to the last one. Israel redeployed troops outside Gaza. Hamas terror organization staged a coup d'etat in June 2007, taking over Gaza from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Since then, they have launched more than 5,000 missiles at Israel.

And yet Israel did not react to that provocation. After thousands of rockets landed on civilians, Israel decided that supplying the Palestinians with fuel and electricity to help Hamas' war effort isn't the best policy of self-defense. The basic needs of the population in Gaza, food and medications, were secured. When Hamas blew open the border between Gaza and Egypt, a massive influx of arms, ammunitions and terrorists come into Gaza.

This is not symmetry. This is terrorism, launched against civilians whose only crime is being Israeli who want to live in peace and security. Israel has the right to defend itself.

Isaac Barr
Bloomfield

A grimmer reality

I wish it were true that Israel defends diversity, but Robert Cohen's claims don't make it a reality.

If the people of Israel are committed to historic reconciliation with the Palestinian people, why don't they start by ending their West Bank and Gaza incursions and so-called targeted assassinations, which have killed and wounded many innocents? And why don't they freeze all settlement building and expansionism in the West Bank occupied territories?

Marion Mourtada
Dearborn Heights
In your voice
Read reactions to this story



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georgeone wrote:

Having returned from Israel this week after 15 days and having gone without any solid evidence of conditions on the ground ,I came away convinced that there will no peace because the Israeli government and Hamas don't want it.The walls around the settlements are rediculous and the treatment of the Westbank Palestinians including Christians relects Israeli bigotry more than a quest for security.The policies of Begin and the extreme Zionists are alive and well and they play into the extreme members of Hamas movement because they both want to exclude or wipe out the other. The old saying "next year in Jerusalem" is now the cry of Islam for the future not just the Jews. Meeting witha missionary from my denomination working with oppressed Palestinians of all stripes and giving him verbalized moral support was the most Christian thing I did on the trip
3/24/2008 11:28:22 AM

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AnneSeldenAnnab wrote:

It was great to once again see some excellent letters in the Free Press by a handful of reasonable rational people who believe in Palestine- and peace. If only more people took the time to simply explain the facts about Israel's constant crimes against the native non-Jewish population of the Hoy Land... if only more people simply challenged Zionist propaganda, using words not weapons ( or endorsements of violence) to help free Palestine.
3/24/2008 7:36:45 AM

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Israel News
IDF deploys new anti-terror system around Gaza

Army upgrades its capabilities in the Gaza region: New system combines camera, machine gun and enables IDF troops stationed in operations room to identify and fire at terrorists without risking themselves

Hanan Greenberg

Published:


03.24.08, 19:10 / Israel News

First report: A new system deployed by the IDF in the Gaza-region enables soldiers stationed in the operations room to fire at Palestinian terrorists near the Gaza fence, Ynet has learned.



The systems, which are equipped with a camera and a machine gun, enable soldiers to watch any activity that takes place near the fence and if necessary to fire at the push of a button. The new system will soon be officially declared "operational."



Gaza Strip



Report: Explosives, mines found near Egypt-Gaza border / AFP



Egyptian security forces find 1100lbs of explosives near border, locate second mine stash nearby. Weapons nabbed shortly before being smuggled into Strip, says Egyptian police

Full Story



In recent months, the IDF Southern Command has integrated the system into its operational routine and instructed IDF field intelligence troops on using it. The system was developed by the Israel Armament Development Authority.


'System not supposed to replace soldiers'

At this time, one system has been deployed north of the Gaza Strip. Additional systems will be deployed along the fence in the near future.



"The system is not supposed to replace soldiers on the ground, and it won't replace the need to charge at terrorists when necessary," an IDF official said.



"We will be able to distinguish between terrorists and innocent civilians," another military official said. "We won't fire needlessly, yet at the same time we are responsible for protecting IDF soldiers."







"Beyond this, through the system we will be able to upgrade our abilities to identify the enemy and thwart attacks in a more effective manner," he said.



Ever since IDF troops left the Gaza Strip, soldiers were able to thwart hundreds of attempts to breach the border fence and carry out attacks. However, IDF officials stress that terror groups are still highly motivated to carry out attacks, prompting the army to constantly improve its defenses.







Israel News


Report: Explosives, mines found near Egypt-Gaza border

Egyptian security forces find 1100lbs of explosives near border, locate second mine stash nearby. Weapons nabbed shortly before being smuggled into Strip, says Egyptian police

AFP

Published:


03.18.08, 15:03 / Israel News

The Egyptian police uncovered 1100lbs of explosives and 40 landmines in the last two days, a source in the Egyptian security forces reported Tuesday.



The caches were found in two separate locations near the Egypt-Gaza border and were meant, according to the source, to find their way into Gaza Strip.



Some 10 days ago, the Egyptian security forces reported uncovering six tunnels used to smuggle weapons into the Strip, and destroyed them.



The tunnels, according to an Associated Press report, were dug under the Egyptian-Gaza border, along agricultural land and several townships.



In mid February, a 440lbs cache of TNT explosives was uncovered by Egyptian security forces near the Gaza border. The find was made thanks to intelligence supplied by Bedouins in Sinai.





NATIONAL POST

Canada

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/03/24/editorial-board-shifting-the-blame-in-gaza.aspx



Editorial Board: Shifting the blame in Gaza

Posted: March 24, 2008, 5:35 PM by Lorne Gunter

National Post Editorial Board

Over the weekend, al-Qaeda released an audio message purporting to come from its deputy leader, Ayman Zawahiri. In it, the speaker called for attacks on American and Israeli interests in retaliation for Israel’s recent raids on the Gaza Strip, which Palestinians claim have killed nearly 100 residents.


Those raids have been harsh. Some innocent bystanders — including children — have died. So there are undoubtedly many in the Western world who believe Israel’s actions were unjustified and who accept the contention of Islamic extremists — al Qaeda included — that Israeli actions are at the root of global Muslim rage. It is Israeli actions, terror apologists claim, that precipitate Islamist terrorism, and not the other way around.
But such beliefs are naïve. Israel’s attacks on Gaza over the last month have been far from unprovoked. In any case, even if the Jewish state were to cease all counter-terrorist operations immediately, jihadis would still target the West.


Since 2001, there have been more than 6,000 rockets and mortars launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel, an average of nearly three per day. Most have been aimed at the industrial-agricultural city of Sderot, whose 20,000 residents live under the constant threat of 15-second air raid warnings. Over 4,000 of the Palestinian-launched attacks — more than two-thirds — have occurred since the Israeli army forcibly removed nearly 7,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza, a gesture of good faith that, Israelis were repeatedly reassured, would end the bombardments. But in just the first two months of this year, there were nearly 900 attacks (15 per day). This was before Israel’s army and air force began their recent reprisals.

Israel has shown tremendous patience and restraint in the face of this daily, deadly fusillade. Islamic fundamentalists, such as Dr. Zawahiri, have willingly misinterpreted Israel’s belated, self-defensive attacks as provocative first strikes. Twisting the facts helps them whip up Muslim anger worldwide, which aids their recruitment of new foot soldiers for their terror war against the West.


What puzzles us, though, is why so much of the world’s media so easily swallows this cynical spin without even trying to ascertain the reasons behind Israel’s counterstrikes. If and when al-Qaeda manages to launch fresh attacks against Western targets, even inside North America, the groundwork will already have been laid for placing the blame on Israel.


What response would Canadians demand of their government and armed forces if 6,000 bombs and missiles had been fired from Mississauga into Etobicoke in the past seven years, or from Surrey into Vancouver, or Longueuil into Montreal? It is unlikely we would have accepted such a long delay in reacting with force nor would we worry that some distant terrorist was threatening an escalation in attacks if we sought to stop the assault.


So far this year, school has been disrupted in Sderot more days than not. Lessons or recess have been curtailed by the need for students to run frantically to bomb shelters on at least 22 different occasions. Canadians who show sympathy for the Palestinian cause might well think differently of Israel using troops and gunships to take out mortar placements and rocket launchers if their own children were under constant threat of injury or death.


Clearly, it is equally tragic when Palestinian children are hurt or killed by Israeli forces. But it is not the Israeli government that hides rocket launchers and mortars in apartment blocks and schoolyards, thereby making human shields of its own people.


We are optimistic Canadian security forces will uncover and dismantle any terror attacks on Canadian soil before they occur. But if Dr. Zawahiri and al Qaeda are successful in carrying out act of terrorism here or elsewhere in the name of Gaza, Westerners should blame the source rather than Israel.



The Israeli Army Kills a Palestinian Farmer in Gaza and Another Man Dies of Earlier Wounds

authorMonday March 24, 2008 14:31author by Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News Report this post to the editors

The Israeli army shot and killed a Palestinian farmer on Monday midday in the southern part of the Gaza strip.

file - 2008
file - 2008

Yousif Abu Thahier, was working his land located in the southern border between Israel and Gaza near the city of Khan Younis when Israeli troops from a nearby army post opened fire; killing the 55 year old man.

Witnesses said that soldiers opened fire at the farmers without any reason. Israeli media sources said that Israeli troops engaged in armed clashes with Palestinian resistance fighters in the early morning near those borders.

On Monday at dawn, Nidal Shaqurah, from the Al Quds brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, was announced dead after succumbing to wounds he sustained last week.

Shaqurah was injured in the town of Beit Lahyia, in the northern part of the Gaza strip, when an Israeli unmanned plane fired missiles at him and his comrades.







BBC News

Last Updated: Monday, 24 March 2008, 11:07 GMT


Jerusalem Diary: Monday 24 March

Tim Franks
BBC News, Jerusalem

KIBBUTZ LIFE

Israeli artist Dov Heller in his studio

Heller's politics and life on a kibbutz epitomise a lost Israel

An hour-and-a-half's drive south-west of Jerusalem lies a trace of old Israel.

The tiny grey splodge on the map is Kibbutz Nirim. It lies just 2km from the Gaza Strip, halfway down Gaza's eastern border.

The kibbutz has been the home, for the past 52 years, of Dov Heller, a man with a shock of grey hair, a sun-beaten face and unflinching optimism.

Dov Heller is in some ways the quintessential Israeli. He also appears to be part of a dwindling minority.

Kibbutz Nirim has resisted the changes that many of Israel's kibbutzim, or communal farms, have undergone.

The adults still pay their wages into a shared pot, even when they hold jobs outside the farm. The same allowance is then paid out to all.

There has been some loosening of the rules. It used to be the case that you could not use your shoe allowance, for example, (which covered the cost of just one new shoe each year) to buy something else - a phone, or a coat.

But that has changed now. The residents can spend their allowance on what they want.

The communal showers have closed. Food at the kibbutz canteen is no longer free, although it is very heavily subsidised. A hefty three-course meal costs $4.



Dov Heller's Fabrica

Enlarge Image

Heller moved to the kibbutz, aged 18, in 1956. He had arrived in Israel at the age of 12, from Romania.

His parents had left him 10 years before that, in the care of his father's sister, while they came to build a home in Palestine. War had kept Heller from his parents between 1939 and 1949.

Heller came to the kibbutz as a young soldier, but quickly proved his expertise as a farmer of potatoes, cotton, nuts and wheat.

After 12 years' farming, aged 30, he was given permission by the kibbutz to study art at the Bezalel academy in Jerusalem.

He continued to farm, but grew as an artist. From student, he became senior lecturer.

Now, 70 years old, he still teaches painting, print-making and sculpture. He is also - I think - one of Israel's finest artists.

EVER OPTIMISTIC

Each Mayday, he hosts an exhibition of 60 to 70 artists, in a converted cowshed on the kibbutz. The artists contribute one print each.

Every picture is red. Heller's politics come from his communist father.

I first met Heller in December. I saw him again on Thursday.



Today, I'm even more optimistic than I was in December. Israel's having contacts - albeit indirect - with Hamas, I'm sure of it. They were elected democratically, after all

Dov Heller

We sat in his studio. He provided lemon tea. His neighbour, an Australian immigrant called Sam, who has lived on the kibbutz as long as Heller, provided strong dark ale, even though it was before midday.

I asked Heller whether he was still the optimist that he had described himself as being, three months before.

After all, on Tuesday, a missile fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza, had hit the neighbouring kibbutz.

"Today, I'm even more optimistic than I was in December," Heller told me. "Israel's having contacts - albeit indirect - with Hamas, I'm sure of it. They were elected democratically, after all.

"Yes, I'm disappointed with what happened once Israel moved out of Gaza. I had hoped the Palestinians wouldn't engage in hostile activities. But this is a process which will take years."

Heller claims not to be a political animal. But before Israel evacuated its 7,000-plus settlers out of Gaza in 2005, he used to organise a small group from the kibbutz, which, every Friday, between two and four in the afternoon, would go to the nearby border crossing to talk to the settlers as they returned to their homes for the Shabbat.

"We would invite them to a friendly discussion. We said they shouldn't stay there. It couldn't end well."

The kibbutzniks may have been neighbours of the settlers, but that was as far as the closeness went. "Our talks didn't meet with success. The settlers were often very hostile."

I suggested to Heller that his left-wing, kibbutz-inspired politics may once have been a mainstream in Israel, perhaps most strikingly before the establishment of the state. But now his was an isolated voice.

Heller demurred.

"Take Meretz," he said, referring to a left-wing party with just five members of parliament.

"It's a small party, and if you ask people 'do you agree with Meretz?' they'll say no. But a lot of Meretz's ideas have filtered down. Like land for peace (the idea that Israel should trade the land it conquered in 1967 for a full peace deal with the Palestinians and neighbouring Arab countries). It's the consensus, now."

Among Heller's next projects is a book of red lithographs. The images are, typically, both strong and intimate.

There are three subjects: a ship (reflecting his parents' immigration), a factory (his father's politics) and a nearby well, at Wadi Salka.

The well, Heller says, could serve both Israel, and the Palestinians in Gaza. It is a symbol of what could be.