Caledoniyya Global

According to Agenzia Giornalistica Italia ( AGI ), almost 700,000 Palestinians have taken advantage of the demolished fence on the Rafah Crossing and flowed into Egypt. UNRWA , the UN agency that assists the Palestinian refugees, has estimated that 400,000 have crossed the border on Wednesday and 300,000 this morning, while tens of street traders are selling falafel and sweets, welcoming the crowd in the Egyptian part of the city of Rafah. After suffering months of poverty and violence, Gazans are stocking up and reuniting as Egyptian guards creak into motion almost forty-eight hours after the first surge. With so many Palestinians in Rafah, ... Read Full Story

The death of a Palestinian child on the Rafah Crossing in Gaza on yesterday evening brought the death toll amongst Gazans that have been stranded at the Rafah Crossing to 32. According to Palestinian sources, seventeen-year-old Abed Al Rahman Lubad was returning from Eygpt, where he had been receiving treatments for cancer. With approximately 6,000 Palestinians stranded on the borders between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, bad health and dire humanitarian conditions have fuelled calls by European, Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations to their respective governments to immediately open Gaza’s borders to passenger traffic, irrespective of their political agenda concerning Hamas. The continued closure of the border crossing ... Read Full Story

There comes a time in every leader’s life when choices have to be made along lines of what is right and wrong. If only it could be that easy. Right and wrong, though seemingly divisible are actually highly ambiguous: at times an action can be politically right, but morally wrong, and vice-versa. The sign of a good leader is one who can surmount both, and still come up smelling of roses. Which is why I don’t envy the Egyptian government, who seem to be trapped in their own dilemma, and pursuing the morally wrong course with alarming gusto. As the death toll in Gaza ... Read Full Story

Through the years that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has raged, one image has stood out above the rest: Hanzala. The barefoot child, seen always from behind surveying varying levels of chaos and tragedy, has become synonymous with Palestine and the official logo of the Commission for Freedom and Justice Through Humor, an arm of WATCH and an affiliate of UNESCO . Born in 1937 in Al-Shajara village in Galilee, al-Ali was forced to leave Palestine in 1948 at the age of 11. Along with his family, they settled in Ain-al-Helwe refugee camp in Sidon in Southern Lebanon. It was amidst the abject conditions of the camp that ... Read Full Story

Each summer we learn of new forest fires, usually in Italy, Spain, Australia and parts of America. The destruction to the environment is dire, yet often the casualties are low. Until this summer. The tragedy that is unfolding across the Peloponnese and other areas of Greece is one of epic proportions, with sixteen people dying today alone - bringing the total figure of fatalities to over fifty. Some 200 fires are raging across the country, and aside from the Peloponnese, the most serious are in Kastoria, Ioannina, Arta and Attica. The accounts of people being burned alive in their cars as they sit in ... Read Full Story