UNRWA has enough food for the entire population of #Gaza for over three months stockpiled in warehouses–including this one in Al Arish, Egypt–awaiting entry. The supplies are available. The systems are in place. Open the gates, lift the siege, allow UNRWA to do its work and help people in need among them 1 million children.

UNRWA

@UNRWA

UNRWA has enough food for the entire population of #Gaza for over three months stockpiled in warehouses–including this one in Al Arish, Egypt–awaiting entry. 

 

 The supplies are available. 

 

The systems are in place. 

 

Open the gates, lift the siege, allow UNRWA to do its work and help people in need among them 1 million children.

Arts & Culture Rescuing the Memory: Gaza's Archaeological Treasures Between Exile and Resilience... The exhibit “Treasures Saved from Gaza – 5,000 Years of History,” organized by the Institut de Monde Arab (IMA) in Paris, constitutes a major cultural event in many respects. It not only highlights an exceptional archaeological heritage but also speaks to the necessity to protect cultural heritage in conflict zones through the example of Gaza, an emblematic region both by its history and the trials it is going through today.

 

Arts & Culture

Rescuing the Memory: Gaza's Archaeological Treasures Between Exile and Resilience

Date: 

May 02 2025

Author: 

Sélim Abi Kheir

The exhibit “Treasures Saved from Gaza – 5,000 Years of History,” organized by the Institut de Monde Arab (IMA) in Paris, constitutes a major cultural event in many respects. It not only highlights an exceptional archaeological heritage but also speaks to the necessity to protect cultural heritage in conflict zones through the example of Gaza, an emblematic region both by its history and the trials it is going through today. 

A Dive Into 5,000 Years of History 

Since antiquity, Gaza has been an intersection of civilizations. Situated on a strategic commercial route between Asia, Africa, and Europe, it was influenced by a number of cultures – Egyptian, Philistine, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, and Ottoman. This rich history is reflected in the objects presented by the IMA, which for the most part come from excavations performed in 1990 and 2000 in the Gaza Strip. 

The exhibit includes around 130 objects selected from a larger collection of 529 pieces belonging to the Palestinian National Authority, which have been kept at the Museum of Art History of Geneva (MAH) since 2007. The objects, ranging from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman Empire, include amphorae, oil lamps, funerary steles, votive figurines, jewels, and an exceptional mosaic from the Byzantine Empire found in Abu Baraqeh. Their diversity testifies to the cultural and religious importance of Gaza through the ages. 

The Treasures “Saved” and Sheltered  

What makes this exhibit particularly poignant is its context. The objects presented have never been able to return to Gaza because of the blockade and successive conflicts. They are kept in Switzerland, at the MAH, which has allowed them to avoid destruction. A large number of archaeological sites in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed in recent years. UNESCO has reported that since 2023, there have been attacks on over 69 cultural sites in Gaza, including a museum, religious sites, and historical buildings. 

 

Marble Statue of Aphrodite on display at the IMA

In this sense, the exhibit does more than simply display ancient artifacts: it is an act of cultural resistance, a reminder of the value of heritage in times of war. The exhibition also features a dedicated space for this issue, with a map of the bombings that have affected heritage sites, as well as rare historical photographs of Gaza in the early 20th century from the collection of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem. 

 

 Hellenistic and Roman artifacts from Gaza on display at the IMA

A Tribute to Memory and Resilience 

For Jack Lang, president of IMA, this exhibit is a tribute not only to the memory and the resilience of the people of Gaza. It serves as a reminder that Gaza, long before becoming a symbol of conflict, was a place of life, exchange, art, and spirituality. By restoring visibility to this glorious past, the exhibit also seeks to revive a collective awareness of the importance of safeguarding world heritage, wherever it may be found. 

A Cultural and Educational Experience... READ MORE https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1657291

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

The Holy Family in Gaza

Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza is named in honor of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, who journeyed through Gaza during their flight to Egypt.

Miss Palestine Sandra Ezz was crowned Miss Arab World 2021 in Egypt

Miss Palestine Sandra Ezz was crowned Miss Arab World 2021 in Egypt

"The position of the United States with respect to our long expressed hope, the Republicans and the Democrats alike (and) many presidents of the last 50 years or more, has always been for peace and President Obama remains committed to a two-state solution," Kerry

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks during a press conference at an economic conference, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Saturday, March 14, 2015. Kerry said he hopes Israel elects a government that can address the country's domestic needs and also "meets the hope for peace." Kerry said whatever decision Israeli voters make in the election Tuesday, he hopes there will be the chance to move forward on peace efforts afterward. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

US President Barack Obama (centre) looks on as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) shakes hands with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas before a 2009 meeting in New York (AFP Photo/Jim Watson)

On Friday, Kerry held talks on the peace process with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II.

The four discussed creating an environment to "push forward the peace process to reach a comprehensive and just peace in the region," Sisi's office said after they met.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-committed-two-state-solution-israel-palestinians-095413959.html

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Obama 'committed' to two-state solution for Israel, Palestinians

Sharm el Sheikh (Egypt) (AFP) - US President Barack Obama is "committed" to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestinians, Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday on the stalled Middle East peace process....READ MORE

What Israel and Hamas are really trying to accomplish in Gaza... "The sole purpose of this war with Israel is to force Egypt to change its policies"

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5897853/gaza-israel-hamas

Ezz Zanoun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

"the Israelis frontloaded their retribution"

Updated by Zack Beauchamp on July 14, 2014, 11:45 a.m.

The current round of fighting between Israel and Hamas feels utterly, totally pointless. Yet according to Hussein Ibish, a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and one of the most respected voices in on the Israel-Palestine conflict in Washington, both sides are playing a deeper strategic game.

Israel is fighting only for appearances, says Ibish: it already struck a major blow against Hamas when, under the pretext of searching for kidnapped boys it already knew were dead, it arrested hundreds of leading Hamas operatives in the West Bank. Meanwhile, Ibish thinks Hamas knows it can't beat Israel or extract major concessions, and is fighting to try to pressure Egypt into giving it a freer border and more money.

This theory came up during a conversation between myself and Ibish on broader issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What follows is a transcript of the relevant portion of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. And if you want to read more of Ibish's thoughts on the Gaza conflict, check out his new column in The National.

Zack Beauchamp: What do you think the effect of the current round of the fighting will be on the unity deal?

Hussein Ibish: That we don't know for sure. Hamas has been desperately trying to get out of this morass that it's found itself in; it really feels trapped and desperate. And they tried to foment trouble in the West Bank, and it didn't succeed. They didn't get anything out of the unity agreement, so it's falling back on what it knows sometimes gets results — which is rocket attacks.

What they are hoping for, this time, is concessions not from Ramallah or from Tel Aviv, but from Cairo, Egypt. I don't think that most people understand that — it's all about Egypt.

What Hamas can get can only come from Egypt. From Israel, they're demanding the release of prisoners that were part of the shahid squad [a Hamas military group] that was arrested when Israel was pretending they didn't know the teenagers were dead. Israel tracked them down and dealt Hamas a serious blow. Which is why Netanyahu isn't so interested in getting into an artillery/aerial exchange with Hamas — the Israelis frontloaded their retribution. It was all done in the West Bank, before the bodies were found.

ZB: I hadn't appreciated the degree to which the Israeli incursion before the bodies were found was effective.

HI: It was a massive, crushing blow against Hamas in the West Bank. They got a lot of their people arrested, a lot of their cells disrupted.

They had the phone call. They already knew the kids were dead. But how do you explain to the Israeli public — look, we already did it?

ZB: Back to Egypt. What does Hamas want from Cairo?

They're hoping to get Rafah [the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt] open, and they're hoping to get the Egyptians to allow the transfer of Qatari and other money, which the Egyptians have been blocking.

In order to do that, I think they're kind of playing on Egyptian public sympathy. Because the Egyptian government is not in any particular mood to charge to the rescue of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood of Palestine. No way. However, Egyptian public opinion has been highly affected — as has public opinion all over the world — by these terrible images of innocent people being killed in Gaza. The context is much less important than the fact that it's happening, and Israel is doing it.

Basically, the sole purpose of this war with Israel is to force Egypt to change its policies. That's what it's about.

Kim Barker: "Most journalists just don’t report it"

"The Committee to Protect Journalists may be able to say that 44 journalists from around the world were killed last year because of their work, but the group doesn’t keep data on sexual assault and rape. Most journalists just don’t report it.

The CBS correspondent Lara Logan has broken that code of silence. She has covered some of the most dangerous stories in the world, and done a lot of brave things in her career. But her decision to go public earlier this week with her attack by a mob in Tahrir Square in Cairo was by far the bravest. Hospitalized for days, she is still recuperating from the attack, described by CBS as a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating.

Several commentators have suggested that Ms. Logan was somehow at fault: because she’s pretty; because she decided to go into the crowd; because she’s a war junkie. This wasn’t her fault. It was the mob’s fault. This attack also had nothing to do with Islam. Sexual violence has always been a tool of war. Female reporters sometimes are just convenient.

In the coming weeks, I fear that the conclusions drawn from Ms. Logan’s experience will be less reactionary but somehow darker, that there will be suggestions that female correspondents should not be sent into dangerous situations. It’s possible that bosses will make unconscious decisions to send men instead, just in case. Sure, men can be victims, too — on Wednesday a mob beat up a male ABC reporter in Bahrain, and a few male journalists have told of being sodomized by captors — but the publicity around Ms. Logan’s attack could make editors think, “Why take the risk?” That would be the wrong lesson. Women can cover the fighting just as well as men, depending on their courage.

More important, they also do a pretty good job of covering what it’s like to live in a war, not just die in one. Without female correspondents in war zones, the experiences of women there may be only a rumor."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/opinion/20barker.html?ref=opinion

Op-Ed Contributor

Why We Need Women in War Zones

By KIM BARKER

Reem Kelani's ululations ... Tahrir Square, Cairo, Friday 11th February

Tahrir Square, Cairo, Friday 11th February

by Reem Kelani on Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 12:58pm

All of a sudden, a massive 'sound wave' rippled across the crowds. People were screaming, shouting, yelling, laughing ecstatically, crying and kneeling on the ground......

I ululated along, and I realised that Mubarak was president no more.

Read Reem Kelani's blog in full on her website: www.reemkelani.com

Follow Reem in Cairo on Twitter @miktab.

Click Here to Buy the Album

reem kelani: biography

Palestinian singer, musician and broadcaster Reem Kelani released her debut album “Sprinting Gazelle – Palestinian Songs from the Motherland and the Diaspora” (Fuse Records) in February 2006 to critical acclaim. Representing the culmination of twenty years’ work, which included research in Palestine, in Palestinian refugee camps and the Palestinian Diaspora into old traditional songs, Sprinting Gazelle is a fully independent production. The excellent reviews which the album has gained and which continue to flow in from across the globe are testament to its quality.

Having spent many years touring and working with musicians from the countries she visited, Reem has focussed her efforts in the UK on working with non-Arab musicians and introducing more of them to Arabic and Palestinian music.

Reem’s music works as well with an Arab audience (through her observance of the conventions of classical Arabic singing, the precision of her language and the authenticity of her research) as with non-Arabs (through the quality of the music, the structuring of the band around a Jazz rhythm section, the carefully researched sleeve notes and translations).

Instead of militant lyrics, Reem's decision to sing traditional songs or songs based on the poetry of well-known Palestinian poets is a simple and yet powerful affirmation of the existence of a Palestinian cultural identity.

Reem has built up an impressive following at grassroots level across the UK, through her work with schoolchildren, women’s groups, youth groups and community choirs.

Reem is also a regular broadcaster. She wrote and presented ‘Distant Chords’ for BBC Radio Four, featuring the music of migrant communities in the UK (Afghan, Yemeni, Kurdish, Armenian, Micronesian and Portuguese). Other programmes also include presenting ‘A Day in the Life of a Palestinian Woman’ and ‘In Praise of God’ for BBC World Service. More recently, she presented “Salome: Dance of the Seven Veils” on BBC Radio 4.

Manchester International Festival commissioned Reem in early 2007 to compose music for and to rehearse the ‘Beating Wing Orchestra’ comprised of locally based refugee and migrant musicians. The work “Paradise in Strangers” was premiered in July 2007 and was a great critical success.

Reem’s next CD project will be a tribute to the great Egyptian composer Sayyid Darwish (1892 – 1923).

***

Born in Manchester, England, and brought up in Kuwait, Reem qualified as a biologist in 1986 at Kuwait University. Upon her graduation and before switching to a full-time career in music, she worked for two years as an assistant marine researcher for Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research (KISR) and two years in research management for the Vice Rector of Research at Kuwait University. Reem is also a literary translator: she assisted her father Dr. Yousef Kelani in the English-Arabic translation of Manfred Ullman’s seminal book ‘Islamic Medicine’ in 1980 and she currently works with the likes of literary editor and historian Dr. Salma Khadra Jayyusi. The sleeve notes of Reem’s debut CD are another example of her translation work.

the grove dictionary of music and musicians

For the chapter entitled Palestinian Music, including Reem's biography, go directly to the Grove Dictionary website: www.grovemusic.com. Please note that the Grove uses the phonetic [transliterated] spelling of Reem's name: Kilani, Riim Yusuf

The upsides of Egypt's revolution by Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post

"...So the first benefit of a democratic Egypt will be a government that will have to take responsibility for its policies, instead of tacitly blaming them on the United States - and extracting unnecessary bribes from Washington. It will have to defend its policies to its own people - which means, for example, that it will have an incentive to check rather than promote anti-Semitic propaganda.

A second benefit should be the end of an era in which U.S. administrations were blamed by Arab media and much of the public for torture, censorship and other repression. That connection not only has fueled anti-Americanism in the region but has also motivated terrorists such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian who is al-Qaeda's second in command.

The United States used to be tarred with the crimes of dictatorships in Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey, too. Now all of those countries, as democracies, mostly respect human rights - and still have friendly relations with the United States. Few blame Washington for their policies. Sometimes they are difficult to work with, and sometimes they vote the wrong way in the U.N. Security Council. But they share U.S. values - and they are enemies of terrorism. A democratic Egypt is more likely to follow their course...READ MORE

The upsides of Egypt's revolution

Let US see Al Jazeera... "If only we could tune in live."

"The events in Egypt, culminating in President Mubarak’s exit, are the beginning of an unpredictable narrative in the Middle East. American news outlets will return home. But, the story continues throughout the region. If only we could tune in live." Juliette Kayyem

Juliette Kayyem is a former homeland security adviser for Massachusetts and most recently served as assistant secretary at the US Department of Homeland Security.

Employees of the English-language satellite news channel Al Jazeera work in the control room in Doha, Qatar. The Egyptian crisis may provide the news channel its best chance yet to capture a larger share of the US audience. (Reuters)

Let US see Al Jazeera

Cable companies have resisted adding Al Jazeera English to the lineup

[http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/]

CSM: "For Arabs used to a heavy hand and little hope, Egypt’s revolution has redefined the possible, before their very eyes."

Protesters break into song in Tahrir Square, Cairo, on Feb. 6.

“Iran is no longer the model; clerics and mullahs are no longer the model, neither is Osama bin Laden or Ayman Zawahiri,” notes Gerges [Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics]. “The model is millions of young Arabs, calling for open societies, for freedom, for transparent elections, for their voices to be heard…. They have really Arabized democracy, and that is why it is such a powerful thing.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0211/Egypt-s-revolution-redefines-what-s-possible-in-the-Arab-world

Egypt's revolution redefines what's possible in the Arab world

The Middle East has been riveted by the success of the grass-roots revolution that ended Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year reign.

EGYPT: Day of anger suggests a new protest scene driven by youth, free of ideology

"...the citizens’ protests in Egypt were driven purely by domestic demands. No signs read “death to Israel, America, and global imperialism” or “together to free Palestine and Iraq.” In the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez the only slogans heard demanded change, freedom, social justice and a stop to corruption in Egypt—they weren’t mixed with regional matters. Egyptians are rediscovering that politics, before anything else, is concerned with citizens’ living conditions within the borders of the relevant nation-state." EGYPT: Day of anger suggests a new protest scene driven by youth, free of ideology