GAZA.— Just hours after 10 men attacked and vandalized the UN Relief and Works Agency facility in Gaza, Palestinian children attending the Summer Games at the UNRWA set a new world record.

The UNRWA facility was being used to stage summer camps for children in the Gaza Strip.

This is the fifth year that UNRWA has organized the Summer Games. The games include sports, art and provide recreation for nearly 250,000 children in Gaza. The children have been attempting to set world records through the duration of the games.

The attackers damaged a large billboard, burned a UN flag and torched part of the stage. No personnel or children were hurt during the attack.

The camp has been attacked twice before, just last year masked men set fire to the facilities and much of the equipment. The attacks were blamed on religious extremists, no results of investigations were officially published.

UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness said in a statement, “We condemn this attack, which is an attack on the children of Gaza as much as on the United Nations. We call on the authorities in Gaza to investigate and bring those responsible to account.”

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) also condemns the attacks , calling for the publication of the results of the investigation into this attack and the investigations of previous attacks.

The attack came just hours before the children were to attempt to set a world record for the largest number of children flying kites at a single location. The children have been attempting to set world records through the duration of the games.

The kite-flying attempt by the children follows their breaking of three world records in the past several weeks at the summer games. In the kite-flying event the official count of kites was more than 13,000, creating a new world record.

“We brought happiness to our country by breaking the world record. Today because we broke the world record I feel like I have rights and that I’m like everyone else in the world.” said Nadia el-Haddad, one of the children.

PALESTINE- ISRAEL.— On April 14th, Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni was abducted in Gaza, the following day he was found dead. Arrigoni was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) an organization resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using non-violent methods. “Staying Human” follows Arrigoni in his resistance campaign as he recounts his experiences in Palestine.

PALESTINE- ISRAEL.—A group of US citizens is defiantly rejecting the Obama Administration’s attempt to impede their aid mission to the Gaza strip. Up to 50 Americans are set to sail from a Greek port on a U.S. flagged- ship called “The Audacity of Hope”.

The boat is part of an international flotilla carrying aid for Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinian residents.

The flotilla members are taking part despite Israeli threats to intercept their ships. Nine people were killed in an Israeli attack on the first flotilla just over a year ago.

“The Audacity of Hope” passengers have called for the U.S. government’s help in ensuring their safe passage, but instead the Obama Administration has told them in fact not to set sail, and even warned them they could face punishment.

Secretary Clinton suggested Israel would have the right to use force to prevent the ship’s passage.

Clinton stated, “We do not believe the Flotilla is a necessary or a useful effort to try to assist the people of Gaza… we think its not helpful for there to be flotillas that try to provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves.”

Ray McGovern, former senior CIA analyst and passenger on the U.S. aid ship commented, “The Israelis do have a right to interdict arms traffic. We’re bearing letters… how can these letters be considered a threat to the security of Israel?”

The state department followed Clinton’s comment with a statement calling the flotilla irresponsible and provocative and warned that U.S. delegates could face fines and incarceration.

The state department refused to comment whether the US considers the Israeli blockade of Gaza legal.

Flotilla passengers are now facing a new unforeseen challenge, the Greek government has refused to grant permission for “The Audacity of Hope” and two other ships to leave port, citing anonymous complaints later revealed to be from an Israeli group.

On Sunday, the Israeli government issued a statement warning foreign journalists not to cover the aid mission; the warning stated that participants would be barred from the country for 10 years and have their equipment confiscated.

The attempt to punish journalists covering the flotilla had been condemned by many rights groups and the Israeli-based Foreign Press Association stated, “The warning sends a chilly message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel’s commitment to freedom of the press.”

Israel has since backtracked on its warning to foreign journalists covering the international aid flotilla, it has ordered the navy to stop a breach of the blockade.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE.—In 2006, Gilad Shalit was taken by armed combatants of Hamas in a cross- border conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Negotiations for Shalit’s release have failed numerous times over the last few years, particularly over the details of the prisoner exchange.

Hamas is demanding the release of all female and underage Palestinian prisoners, as well as individuals they allege to be innocent of any charges. Israel refuses to release many on the list claiming them guilty.

While Netanyahu has expressed frustration with the progress, he has made it quite clear that a deal cannot be made and negotiations will not suffice.

Gilad has become an Israeli national symbol, said to represent the fear of most Israeli citizens, who do obligatory military service.

A videotape was released of Shalit in 2009, in exchange for 20 female Palestinian prisoners. However, since the release of the tape negotiations have continually slowed, largely due to the changing nature of the conflict. The dynamics of the conflict have changed significantly since 2006 when Shalit was first taken.

As both sides continue to enumerate demands, Gilad Shalit will almost certainly continue to serve as an emblematic negotiation centerpiece between the two factions.

Generally, administrative detention orders are subject to review by a military judge within eight days. In Ahmad Qatamesh’s case, the judge did not issue her decision to confirm the order until 19 May when she reduced the length from six to four months. 

The judge acknowledged that the original order of 3 May had contained factual errors and had been produced for another detainee and adapted for use in Ahmad Qatamesh’s case. Regardless, she concluded that the ISA’s secret evidence against him justified his detention for security reasons.

Neither Ahmad Qatamesh nor his lawyer is permitted to see the “evidence” against him.

He was arrested on 21 April at 2am at the house where he was staying in al-Bireh, in Ramallah. The security forces had first gone to his family’s home to arrest him. When they did not find him there they broke down the door of the neighbor’s house to search for him. According to his daughter, the security forces ordered her at gunpoint to telephone Qatamesh. Ahmad Qatamesh then gave the security forces directions to the house where he was staying so they could arrest him.

Ahmad Qatamesh is an academic and writer who has previously criticized both the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian Authority. Ahmad was arrested and claimed to have been tortured by the IDF in 1992. He was held for a year before being placed under administrative detention after a judge had ordered his release on bail. He was eventually released on 15 April 1998.

Administrative detention is an Israeli procedure under which detainees are held without charge or trial for periods of up to six months which are renewable indefinitely. No criminal charges are filed against administrative detainees and there is no intention of bringing them to trial.

The detainees are held on the basis of “secret evidence” which the Israeli military authorities claim cannot be revealed for security reasons. The “secret evidence” is not made available to detainees or their lawyers, and detainees cannot challenge the reasons for their detention.

The Israeli authorities have used administrative detention against thousands of Palestinians for the past several decades, though the number of administrative detainees has decreased slightly over the last three years.

Amnesty International is concerned that he may be detained solely because of his peaceful expression of his political views.

The event will include fundraising for the Irvine 11, all donations help with legal fees and campaign costs. The Irvine 11 is a group of students who peacefully and publicly voiced dissent during a talk by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.

The event is free to the public.

WHERE: Pacific Ballroom, UCI

WHEN: June 18th at 6:30pm

RSVP ONLINE: http://www.mlfa.org/rsvp

David Makovsky is the Director of the Washington Institute’s Project on the Middle East Peace Process, and Ghaith al-Omari is the former advisor to Fatah/PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas and current head of the American Task Force in Palestine.

WHERE: Humanities Building – Room A51

WHEN: Wednesday May 25th from 7p.m.- 9p.m.

Palestine Awareness Week is an effort to educate the campus on the Israeli- Palestine conflict. The group seeks to present the truth on the ongoing conflict and present the withheld facts to the public;  to promote justice, human rights, liberation, and self-determination for the Palestinian people.

The group advocates:

• An end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.

 • The establishment of either a fully independent and viable Palestinian state in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or of one secular, democratic state over all of modern-day Israel and Palestine.

• An end to Israel’s system of apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as well as its system of discrimination against the Arab population within its own borders.

• A solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.

Monday, May 2nd the group presented Ambassador Edward Peck to speak on the ongoing Israeli- Palestine conflict. Ambassador Peck  spoke at length about U.S. relations with Middle Eastern countries. He  focused on U.S. Foreign Policy toward the Israeli- Palestine conflict and how it has had a detrimental effect on peace-making in the region.

Peck stressed that due to several factors the American public is largely unknowledged in regards to the Middle East. Everything is based on “perception” and American preception of the Middle East is largely far from veracity.

He argued Americans lack knowledge about the Middle East because we live in isloation and we are powerful country, which leads the population to feel secure and self content and extremely ethnocentric. Consequently, U.S. foreign policy looks out for its own national interests, not the best interests of another state.

In the context of peace, Ambassador Peck stated “If you were to look at a map of wars over centuries and millenia you would see that virtually every part of the world has been over-run, invaded and occupied by peoples of different languages, histories, cultures and religions. Up until WWII many countries were stilled pacified such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, only within the past few decades attaining independence and ‘peace’”.

Ambassador Peck argued that you cannot logically have peace while being occupied it is simply unattainable, the situation is Palestine a prime example of this phenonmenon.

As far negotiating Ambassador Peck  claimed this as virtually non-existent between Israel and Palestine. He stated, Al-Haq who works with the Palestinian negotiation team claimed there is no negotion going on only begging on the side of the Palestinians.

Peck maintained that Israel has no intentions of negotiating with Palestine and never has. There are currently “526 obstacles” in the West Bank, their main purpose: Security? No, harassment.”

On Wednesday, May 4th Rabbi Yisroel Weiss spoke on the Palestine and Israel conflict.

The Rabbi made it a point to discern between Judeaism and Zionism. Rabbi Weiss claimed that Judeaism has existed for thousands of years while Zionism is a fairly new ideology created in the past 100 years.

Zionism, Rabbi Weiss argued that Zionism was created by a non-religious European faction that sought to create a Jewish state. Zionism is a form of nationalism, a political ideology not a religion, and particularly unrelated to Judeaism.

Zionists use the Torah, the Rabbi claimed, as its deed to the land; continually, they turn to the holy text as a legitimization for their right to the territory.

In actuality, the larger Jewish population rejects Zionism and the legitimacy of the state. He explained that Jewish communities have in fact thrived in practically every Arab country in the past, until about 100 years ago with the creation of Zionism.

Ultimately, Rabbi Weiss urged the peaceful dismantling of the state of Israel as the logical and moral solution to the conflict.

LOS ANGELES, Ca– Saturday May 7th, Students for Justice in Palestine host professor, activist, and renowned scholar Noam Chomsky for an in-depth talk on Palestine.

Where: UCLA, Young Hall – -Trueblood Lecture Hall – Rm CS50

When: Saturday, May 7th from 6p.m.- 10p.m.