Against all odds, The Palestine Chronicle amplifies Palestinian voices and reports the truth about Gaza. But we can't do it without you. Your support sustains our powerful, independent model of journalism.
Month: June 2015

On Intimidation and Counter-BDS Efforts
By Samah Jabr The Orange Affair The Orange affair here is not the ominous orange of the victims of Guantanamo or the Islamic state – it about the French telecommunication company Orange and its recent […]

Israeli Forces, Settlers Carry out Reprisals for West Bank Shooting
Israeli forces carried out multiple detention raids across the occupied West Bank overnight Monday after four Israeli settlers were injured in a shooting south of Nablus and an explosive device was allegedly hurled at a […]

Sisi’s Strategy behind the Sudden Opening of the Rafah Border Crossing
By Matthew Ayton The people of the economically immiserated Gaza Strip have been given a semblance of relief as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has announced that the Rafah crossing – Gaza’s lifeline with the […]

Will the UN’s Gaza Report Force Change?
By Annie Slemrod A United Nations investigation accusing Israel and Palestinian armed groups of alleged war crimes in last summer’s Gaza conflict caused a stir on Monday. The report singled out Israel for its use of […]

Israel Seizes Flotilla Seeking to Break Gaza Blockade
Israel’s navy boarded and took over an activist vessel seeking to break its Gaza blockade and was escorting it to port on Monday in an operation that did not use force, the military said. A […]

Khader Adnan Ends 55-day Hunger Strike
Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan ended a 55-day hunger strike on Monday after reaching an agreement with Israeli authorities to free him from prison on July 12, his lawyer and the Palestinian Prisoners Society announced. “Khader […]

PLO: Talks with Hamas, Islamic Jihad Begin on New Government
A committee appointed by the Palestine Liberation Organization began talks with both Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Saturday on forming a new national unity government, a committee member told Ma’an. Hanna Amireh, who is also […]

Lawyer: No Deal between Israeli Authorities and Khader Adnan
No deal has been reached between the Israeli authorities and Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan who on Saturday entered his 54th day on hunger strike, his lawyer said. “(Israel) is seeking to end Adnan’s hunger strike […]

Is BDS Replacing Iran as Israel’s Blackmail Card?
By Alan Hart My headline question was provoked by an Uri Avnery article with the headline “BDS, the new enemy”. After noting that Netanyahu’s whole career has been based on fear mongering and in recent […]

In Baghdad, Organized Destruction
By Cathy Breen Two days ago an email came from an Iraqi doctor in Baghdad in response to a brief greeting I sent for the month of Ramadan. “Thanks so much for remembering us…In fact […]

Khader Adnan: A Symbol of Palestinian Resistance
By Ghada Ageel The body of Khader Adnan is again on the line and the very life of this Palestinian political prisoner is in great danger. Adnan, who successfully carried out one of the longest […]

Asylum Seekers: Fortress Europe with Israeli Guns
By Shir Hever The EU has recently adopted a plan to use extreme measures to restrict the flow of asylum-seekers from Africa and the Middle East, who cross the Mediterranean in a desperate attempt to […]

The B Vocabulary: The Western Left and Its Sterile ‘Field of Ideas’
By Ramzy Baroud Over the year, I realized that the term ‘left’ is not exclusive to a political ideology, but a mode of thinking championed mostly by self-tailored ‘leftist’ western intellectuals. I grew to dislike […]

Israeli Forces Shoot, Injure 2 Palestinians in Southern Gaza
Israeli forces, deployed on the southern Gaza border, shot and injured two young Palestinian men east of Khuzaa on Monday evening, medics told Ma’an. The men were left bleeding for a quarter of an hour […]

The Drone Eats with Me: Diaries from a City under Fire
By Vacy Vlazna “We prepare the suhoor. We all sit around five dishes: white cheese, hummus, orange jam, yellow cheese, and olives. Darkness eats with us. Fear and anxiety eat with us. The unknown eats […]

The United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict
Human Rights Council Twenty-ninth session Agenda item 7 Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories Report of the independent commission of inquiry established pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution S-21/1* ** Summary: […]

Would You Advise a Friend to Follow You Across the Mediterranean?
By Joe Dyke – Beirut Of the two, Jad never wanted to leave – Syria was home, and he liked it. His friend Hassan* had been angling for a move to Europe for years, hoping […]

Palestinians Urge Britain to Arrest Former Israeli Army Chief Shaul Mofaz
A Palestinian human rights group urged the British authorities on Monday morning to arrest Shaul Mofaz, Israeli army chief of staff at the height of the Second Intifada and former defense minister, who is currently […]

Abbas Sees No Place for Hamas in New Govt, Says French FM
President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday told visiting French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius that any new Palestinian unity government will only include officials who recognize Israel, France’s top diplomat said. “(Abbas) told me this government of […]

UN Report: ‘War Crimes’ Likely by Both Sides in 2014 Gaza War
Both Israel and Palestinian militants may have committed war crimes during last year’s Gaza war, a widely anticipated United Nations report said Monday, decrying “unprecedented” devastation and human suffering. The Commission of Inquiry on the […]

Outrage as Wife of Israeli Interior Minister Posts and then Quickly Deletes Racist Joke Calling U.S. President ‘Black and Weak’
The wife of a senior Israeli politician has posted a racist tweet about Barack Obama, suggesting he is ‘black and weak’. TV host Judy Nir Mozes Shalom, who is married to Interior Minister Silvan Shalom, […]

More Than 40% of Palestinians in Historic Land Are Refugees
Statistics released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) on Monday show that 41.2 per cent of the Palestinian residents of their historic land are refugees; 25.2 per cent live in the occupied West […]

Palestinian Shot, Injured after Stabbing Attack in East Jerusalem
A Palestinian was shot and seriously injured on Sunday morning after he stabbed an Israeli border guard policeman near Damascus Gate at the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem, witnesses and Israeli police said. Although […]

Shadings of Zionism
By Blake Alcott Last year liberal Zionists launched efforts to get international recognition for a tiny state called Palestine. The US-brokered peace talks that terminated in mid-2014 were the last of many attempts to get […]

Report: Hamas Military Wing Claims Responsibility for Friday Shooting
Hamas military wing Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades reportedly claimed responsibility for Friday’s West Bank shooting that left an Israeli man dead and another lightly injured. “One of the fighters ambushed a settler vehicle and shot […]

Gaza Welcomes Ramadan with Record Levels of Poverty and Unemployment
The Chamber of Commerce in Gaza has reported that nearly two million Palestinians are facing the month of Ramadan under the worst economic conditions in decades. The blame has been placed on the effects of […]

Win for Academic Freedom: Steven Salaita Awarded Back-to-back Victories against University that Fired Him
The first part of June has awarded back-to-back victories to a professor who last year was dismissed from his post at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Nearly a year ago Steven Salaita was fired […]

The Living Martyr, a Visit to the Bakr Family in Gaza
Last week, the Israeli military absolved itself of wrongdoing in the killing of the four Bakr boys during the war on Gaza last summer. Israeli military spokesperson Peter Lerner posted a narrative on his Facebook […]

Jewish Extremists Torch Revered Christian Site in Northern Israel
A suspected arson attack damaged a revered Christian shrine in northern Israel overnight, police said Thursday, as a church adviser pointed the finger at Jewish extremists. The Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha on the […]

The Imperative of Palestinian Liberation
By Atef Alshaer Before 1948, there was no country, nation-state, in historic Palestine called Israel. Israel founded itself by the conquest and exclusion of others, the Palestinians, the rightful owners of Palestine. This is the […]