INSIDE: - Palestine Solidarity Campaign

20 palestine NEWS IN BRIEF
spring2010
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TOURISM CONCERN DOES NOT
STRETCH TO ISRAEL/PALESTINE
A 50 page illustrated report on human rights abuses in tourism by
Tourism Concern (TC) is conspicuously silent about Israel/ Palestine,
although referring to some 50 different locations worldwide with
major case studies on countries like Burma or issues like water, all
evoking silent echoes.
TC is financially straitened in the economic downturn, but
sympathetic on Palestine, and part of a European federation of
tourism groups TEN which has published a Code for Palestine.
Even so a search on TC’s website (www.tourismconcern.org.
uk) reveals nothing about Israel and only a passing reference to
Palestine as against 52 separate notices on India, 8 on Costa Rica
and 17 on the Maldives.
TC is about to make a weblink with Alternative Tourism Group
based in Bethlehem whose website not only has the tourism
(and pilgrimage) Code for Palestine agreed by a group of Israeli/
Palestine groups but features a best-seller travel guidebook
Palestine & Palestinians (new edition obtainable in UK) plus a range
of information resources, though few weblinks.
Maybe a competition is needed for the most outrageous
Palestine tourism snippet? Israeli guides’ warning that Bethlehem
isn’t safe? A virtual Bethlehem theme park planned by Israel
Tourism? Meanwhile Tourism Concern needs members for it to be
effective!
Bernard Kilroy
•
250 NEW AMPUTEES AFTER
GAZA ASSAULT
At 15 years
old, Jamila
al-Habbash
is learning to
walk again
at the halffinished
Artificial Limb
and Polio
Centre in
Gaza City
after she lost
both her legs
in a missile
strike by an
unmanned
Israeli drone
as she played
on the roof
of her home:
her sister and
cousin were
killed in the
blast.
Israel’s
23-day assault on Gaza killed 1400 Palestinians and injured 5,303
more. These included 250 people who lost their limbs who have
been added to the 5,000 amputees already in Gaza before the
onslaught.
The only rehabilitation hospital with the capacity to treat amputee
patients effectively, the al-Wafaa Rehabilitation Centre in northern
Gaza, was hit by artillery fire. The Centre is now struggling to cope
with demand but the construction of an upper floor extension has
been delayed by a lack of funds.
Israel’s blockade disrupts the import of prosthetic limbs and
the raw materials with which to make them. “The Red Cross helps
to mediate between us and the Israelis to let materials cross
which takes about three months,” said Mohamed Ziada, one of
five specialists at the centre. He added that foreign prosthetics
specialists who had tried to come and train Gazan doctors had been
denied entry.
•
SETTLER POPULATION RACES
AHEAD
Settlement under construction
The West Bank settler population grew almost three times faster
than that of the country as a whole in the first nine months of 2009,
according to figures from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
However, the 4.9 per cent increase — from 290,400 to 301,200
(not including East Jerusalem) — when compared with the same
time last year, shows that for the second year in a row, population
growth has slowed down slightly.
Settlers living in the West Bank represented 4.1% of Israel’s
population of 7.4 million at the end of September 2009. The total
population grew by 1.8% over the same period.
Out of the 10,800 new settlers at the end of September 2009,
50.4% were in the three largest cities — Modi’in Illit, Beitar Illit and
Ma’aleh Adumim — all of which are close to the pre-1967 armistice
line. The government believes that that these three settlements
would remain within Israeli jurisdiction in any final-status agreement
with the Palestinians.
•
MEDICAL CHARITY FORMS
SUPPORTERS GROUP
Professor Colin Green of the Northwick Park Institute for Medical
Research in London is forming a supporters group to raise money
for five large scale, five year projects that his charity is running in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The International Medical Education Trust 2000 (IMET 2000), of
which Green is CEO, was formed to take advantage of advances in
communications technology to promote international co-operation
in teaching and research. 90% of the charity’s income is donated to
Palestine and the rest to Africa.
Immediate priorities include a new burns unit in Nasser Hospital
in the south of Gaza; setting up telemedicine networks with Cairo
University and funding a young Gazan doctor to do a PhD in the
pathology department there; installing 15 computers in the Ramallah
office to develop e-learning resources, and developing mental
health, drug addiction and oral hygiene programmes.
The charity aims to try to raise relatively small sums in the UK
then go for bigger grants in the Gulf and USA. Prof Green says:
“With £150,000 a year we can do a great deal of teaching and
training in Palestine. With £350,000 we could have a huge impact on
the whole knowledge base in the health sector.”
See www.imet2000.org, or email Prof Green at rmhkcjg@ucl.ac.uk
•
AMBULANCES STOPPED,
MEDICAL TEAMS SHOT AT
As Israeli Occupation Forces pursued their attacks against Palestine
Red Crescent Society medical teams, a total of 455 violations of
International Humanitarian Law were recorded in 2009 including
direct shooting incidents, impeding access to the sick and wounded
and verbal and physical abuse.
There were 15 shooting incidents and attacks against
ambulances and their teams and a PRCS volunteer in the Gaza Strip