Life in Gaza Explained (Video)

 Gaza has been described as the world’s largest open air prison. Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip has had catastrophic results for average Palestinians living there. We look at the the unforgiving realities they face everyday.

Israel-Gaza conflict: ‘Israel must stop punishing Gaza’s people,’ pleads UN commissioner

By: Donald Macintyre

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk

The United Nations’ top humanitarian official in the Middle East yesterday issued an impassioned appeal for a new deal for Gaza to end the “collective punishment” of its 1.8 million inhabitants imposed by Israel’s seven-year blockade of the territory.

As Egyptian mediators prepared to renew efforts today to persuade Israel and Hamas to agree a durable peace deal to end more than a month of conflict, Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissoner General of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, warned: “You cannot just return to the pre-existing conditions under the blockade.”

The ending of the blockade is one of Hamas’s key demands in the Cairo peace talks. Yesterday, Hamas’s head of foreign affairs, Osama Hamdan, said on his official Facebook page that Israel’s position did not meet the aspirations of the Palestinians. And he warned: “Israel must accept the demands of the Palestinian people or face a long war.”

Israeli delegation open to easing Gaza blockade

Part of the Palestinian negotiating team pictured in Cairo
(MaanImages)

Source: http://www.maannews.net/

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A nine-hour session of indirect negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli delegations in Cairo on Monday ended with a partial draft agreement on easing the blockade on Gaza, sources close to the talks told Ma’an.

Negotiations for a lasting end to hostilities in the Gaza Strip are to resume at noon on Tuesday, the sources said.

Israelis protest IDF Gaza bombing as deadly op drags on (Video)

 In Tel Aviv, Israelis protested the continuing fighting and called for an end to the blockade on Gaza. The protest, expected to be larger, had originally been canceled by police, saying the security situation didn’t allow for a large gathering. A small minority of war opponents exists in Israel, but they complain of being silenced.
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US media finally acknowledges Gazans’ plight

Israel may fear results as for first time, jolted by social media, mainstream channels reveal true conditions in Gaza.

By: Patty Culhane

Source: http://blogs.aljazeera.com/

I sometimes wonder about how many businesses have been impacted by the invention of the Internet. Think about it, when we first started typing www, do you think any travel agents said well this is seriously going to kill my business? Did anyone envision the impact of what a store like Amazon would do to traditional business?

Who really thought well one day there will be a virtual store where I can buy costumes for my cat, laundry detergent and a blanket with sleeves. It’s changing something else that I truly never expected, the narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the US.

For the first time, I’ve seen the mainstream media actually devote a considerable amount of time describing not just the current fighting but the conditions that the people of Gaza live under.