Israel & Palestine Topics

Democracy Now! stories, posts and pages that relate to Israel & Palestine

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  • Bloody Israeli Assault on Gaza Enters Fourth Week, Palestinian Death Toll Tops 1,100

    It’s Day 21 of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Israeli warplanes attacked forty targets across Gaza overnight, as Israeli troops backed by tanks have pushed deep into the heart of Gaza City. Since Israel started its bombardment of Gaza, over 1,100 Palestinians have been killed and more than 5,200 wounded. At least 700 civilians are among the dead, including more than 350 children. We speak with Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi....
    Jan 16, 2009 | Story

  • Palestinian Astrophysicist in US Recounts How His 11-Year-Old Son Died When Israeli Warplanes Bombed His Family's House

    As the Palestinian death toll in Israel’s assault on Gaza climbs above 1,100, we take a look behind the statistics. Suleiman Baraka is a Palestinian astrophysicist working at Virgnia Tech with NASA. His eleven-year-old son Ibrahim was killed in an Israeli air strike on his house. His wife and three other children are now homeless in Gaza, along with seventeen members of his family. In his first broadcast interview in the US, Suleiman Baraka...
    Jan 16, 2009 | Story

  • Palestinian US College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Bar Ambulances

    Amer Shurrab is a Palestinian from Khan Yunis and a recent graduate of Vermont’s Middlebury College. On Friday, his father and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle came under Israeli fire. Twenty-eight-year-old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. Eighteen-year-old Ibrahim survived the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to reach them until twenty hours later. By...
    Jan 21, 2009 | Story

  • Ex-Carter Admin Official: Israel Ignored Hamas Offer Days Before Attacking Gaza; Violated Ceasefire with Attacks, Blockade

    Robert Pastor is a senior adviser to the Carter Center and a professor at American University who met with exiled Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus on Dec. 14, along with former President Jimmy Carter. Pastor says Meshaal indicated Hamas was willing to go back to the ceasefire if Israel would lift the siege on Gaza. He says he passed along the statement to the Israeli military, but he never heard back. Two weeks later, Israel launched...
    Jan 22, 2009 | Story

  • Part II: Palestinian US College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Blocked Ambulances

    We return to the heart-wrenching tale of Amer Shurrab, who lost two of his brothers on the same day in an Israeli attack in Gaza. Amer is a Palestinian from Khan Yunis living in the United States. He recently graduated from Middlebury College. On Friday, his father and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle came under Israeli fire. Twenty-eight-year-old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. Eighteen-year-old...
    Jan 22, 2009 | Story

  • Noam Chomsky: Obama's Stance on Gaza Crisis "Approximately the Bush Position"

    In a visit to the State Department Thursday, President Obama made his first substantive comments on the Middle East conflict since Israel’s attack on Gaza. Obama first mentioned his commitment to Israel’s security, without affirming his commitment to Palestinian security. He condemned Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns, but didn’t criticize the US-backed Israeli bombings of densely populated Gaza. But in a departure...
    Jan 23, 2009 | Story

  • Worse than an Earthquake: Peace Activist Kathy Kelly on the Destruction in Gaza

    President Obama has dispatched George Mitchell on his first trip as Middle East envoy. Mitchell is set to begin in Egypt today, followed by Israel, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. My next guest has just returned from the Gaza Strip, where she witnessed the Israeli attack. Kathy Kelly is the executive director of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. [includes rush transcript]
    Jan 27, 2009 | Story

  • Former US President Jimmy Carter: "We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan that Will Work"

    As Israelis go to the polls in the country’s early general election, we speak with former US President Jimmy Carter. His latest book is We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan that Will Work. President Carter says he wrote the book because President Obama is "facing a major opportunity and responsibility to lead in ending conflict between Israel and its neighbors." President Carter writes, "The time is now. Peace is possible."...
    Feb 11, 2009 | Story

  • Israeli Professor Neve Gordon and Palestinian Lawmaker Mustafa Barghouthi on the Israeli Elections

    With 99 percent of the votes counted Wednesday morning in the Israeli election, Tzipi Livni’s centrist Kadima Party was in first place with twenty-eight seats, while Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party was a close second with twenty-seven seats. They are both claiming victory but would need coalition partners to gather the sixty-one seats needed to form a government in the 120-seat Knesset. For analysis of the election results,...
    Feb 11, 2009 | Story

  • Palestinian Astrophysicist in US Reunited with Wife & Three Remaining Children After Story of His 11-Year-Old Son's Death in Israeli Air Strike Broadcast on Democracy Now!

    Suleiman Baraka is a Palestinian astrophysicist working at Virginia Tech with NASA. His eleven-year-old son Ibrahim was killed in an air strike during Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza. After he first told his story on Democracy Now!, the US consulate in Jerusalem contacted him and got his surviving family members out of Gaza. This weekend, at Washington, D.C.’s Dulles Airport, he was reunited with his wife and three remaining children....
    Mar 03, 2009 | Story