When Hassan Sheikh Hijazi first opened his flower farm in 1991, it flourished. “We had a very good family business,” he says. “We exported hundreds of thousands of flowers to Holland and from there our flowers were sold across Europe. The traders knew our flowers were good quality — and Gaza was open for business.” With its mild coastal weather and well-drained soil, the Gaza Strip is an ideal location for commercial flower farming. There are more than a hundred small flowers farms across the Gaza Strip, and they employ some 7,000 farm workers between them. Read more about Gaza flower producers watch their industry die
In the past few days, three Palestinian patients from the Gaza Strip, including a woman and an infant, have died due to denial of their access to medical treatment outside the Gaza Strip, which suffers from the lack of appropriate medical equipment and a shortage in medicines. Read more about Patients die as ambulances have no fuel and Israel denies travel
Early Saturday evening, Israeli forces fired a surface-to-surface missile from one of its bases along the Gaza Strip border, targeting three friends in a bamboo hut in a field east of Beit Hanoun. The targeted area was approximately 1.2 kilometers away from the border with Israel. The rocket landed in the middle of the three civilians who were preparing food during their picnic in the field; they were instantly killed and dismembered. Read more about Three Gaza picnickers killed by Israeli missile
On 10 January 2002 Israeli bulldozers flattened 59 houses in the Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza Strip. Residents fled their homes in heavy rain, most losing all their possessions in the process. Among those made homeless were a number of children who were terrified and traumatized by what happened. Read more about British police failed to arrest Israeli war criminal
On Thursday, 13 February, Fawzia Abd al-Fattah al-Darak (59) from Deir al-Ghosoun north of Tulkarm died when Israeli forces prevented an ambulance from taking her to a hospital in Tulkarm. Mohammad al-Darak, her husband, testified that his wife started to experience severe chest pain. They called the emergency department of the Palestine Red Crescent Society in Tulkarm in order to transport her to a hospital. Read more about Woman dies after being denied passage through Israeli checkpoint
“We receive 20-25 new referrals every day, and we see approximately 350 children a week here at the centre. Last year we treated more than 8,400 children here in Gaza city, plus another 8,000 children at our centre in Khan Younis. All of them were under five years old, and all of them were malnourished.” Najah Zohod is the Nutritional Director of the Ard al-Insan Child Nutrition Center in Gaza City. Read more about "Shocking" rate of malnutrition in donor-dependent Gaza
“I’ve been a fisherman for thirty six years, ever since I was 15 years old. My original village, al-Jura, was famous for its fishermen. When my father migrated to Gaza in 1948, he came here by boat.” Jamal Mohammed Bassalla is the spokesman of the Rafah Fisherman’s Syndicate in the southern Gaza Strip. The syndicate represents around 450 local fishermen and its headquarters are on the beach just outside Rafah. This morning, however, Jamal and his crew are sitting under tarpaulin on the beach, drinking tea around a small driftwood fire. Conditions at sea are treacherous, and they’re waiting for the weather to improve. Read more about Gaza fishermen: "We are ready to work"
At approximately 8:00pm on Sunday, 20 January, the Gaza Strip power plant ran out of fuel and shut down, plunging the Gaza Strip into darkness. The closure of the Gaza power plant, in addition to Israel’s continued, tightened siege on the Gaza Strip, will have a catastrophic effect on the 1.5 million residents of Gaza, who are already suffering chronic shortages of fuel, medicine and some basic food stuffs. The director of Gaza’s main hospital, al-Shifa, describes the current situation as “potentially disastrous.” Read more about Rights org: Gaza situation potentially disastrous
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have intensified their war crimes in the Gaza Strip with total disregard for civilian lives. During the last three days, nine Palestinians, including four civilians, have been killed by the IOF. Three of the civilian victims were women. In addition, 57 other people were inured, the majority of whom were also civilians. On 18 January shrapnel from a bomb fired from an Israeli fighter jet onto a governmental building hit a nearby wedding celebration, killing one woman and injuring dozens of others. Read more about Israel kills nine Gazans, injures 57 in three days
On Wednesday at noon, 16 January 2008, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) launched an air strike against a civilian vehicle in Gaza City. Three Palestinian civilians (a man, his son and his brother) were killed in the strike. According to preliminary investigations conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, at approximately 12:30pm on Wednesday, an IOF aircraft fired a missile at a civilian vehicle, in which three members of the al-Yazji family, including a child, were traveling, in al-Nafaq Street in the al-Daraj neighborhood of east Gaza City. Read more about Israeli forces kill Gaza civilians in botched execution attempt