Facts today are hard to get, as there has been no access to the Gaza Strip since the Summer of 2023, and world statistics are scarce, be they in the CIA Factbook or else.
The Cease-Fire of August 26, 2014
The Cease-Fire of August 26, 2014
After 50 days of warfare, 8 failed cease-fires, and the disastrous toll of 2,192 killed and 11,000 wounded on one side (most of them civilians), 73 killed and 556 wounded on the other side (most of them soldiers), an "unlimited cease-fire" was finally declared on Tuesday, August 26, starting at 7 p.m., with all the factions concerned – not only Israel and Hamas, but also Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and PRC. The main issues remain to be negotiated though :
– the monitoring of permanent passage to and from Israel and Egypt, with unrestricted access for foreign civilians, rehabilitation teams, members of the European Parliament, diplomats…
– the actual opening to normal, regular commercial transactions
– the release of West Bank prisoners (both arbitrarily detained and longest-serving),
– the construction of a seaport, and the reconstruction of the airport,
to really "enable Gaza to open to the world, guarantee the possibility of a viable economy, and improve the humanitarian situation", as required in the Open the Doors Campaign.
So that the future will not become even worse than the status quo ante, both sides must agree to an unlimited pact of mutual non-aggression, with the properly empowered monitoring and verification missions, to ensure that there be no further violations or provocations.
Peace Lines Communiqué of August 25, 2014
Facing the unsustainable war of attrition between Gaza and Israel, we exhort all leaders presently involved in negotiations for a permanent cease-fire to abide by universal humanitarian standards. The erratic war mechanisms holding civilians hostage on both sides must be exposed as counter-productive and conducive to terror.
In their clarion call, more than 300 survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants remind us : “Nothing can justify bombing UN shelters, homes, hospitals and universities. Nothing can justify depriving people of electricity and water.”
1,800,000 people have been under blockade for seven years, making this the longest siege in modern history. 500,000 persons have been displaced in Gaza. Around Gaza, 70% of the Israelis have had to evacuate their homes.
Since 2008, 69 Nobel laureates and 587 Members of the European Parliament (231 in the current mandate) have engaged themselves with the n.g.o. Peace Lines in the “Open the Doors Campaign”. Its four fundamental objectives remain :
1. The Gaza blockade must end. Israel must enable Gaza to open to the world, so as to guarantee the possibility of a viable economy, and improve the humanitarian situation.
2. The Palestinians must end all rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.
3. The cycle of deadly reprisals must end, including “targeted assassinations”.
4. As a confidence-building measure, the Israelis, who still hold more than 5,000 men and 15 women in their jails, must release significant numbers of prisoners on humanitarian and legal grounds : sick prisoners, women detainees, the longest-serving prisoners, and administrative detainees – among them 25 Members of the Palestinian Parliament, not to forget 200 minors in detention.
Striving for these objectives implies credible negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian government. So that both peoples may at last live in security, dignity and justice, we urge the European Union – in view of its embedded involvement in the history of the Middle East – to assume its inherent responsibility as guarantor of a sustainable resolution.
Among the most influential signatories of the Open the Doors Campaign : Peace Nobel laureates : Archbishop Tutu from South-Africa, the Dalai Lama, Irishman John Hume, ex-US President Carter, Shirin Ebadi, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Jody Williams…; Literature laureates : American author Toni Morrison, Nigerian author Wole Soyinka, Australian author John Coetzee from South-Africa…; Chemistry laureates : Roald Hoffmann, Sir Aaron Klug, Yuan T. Lee…; Medicine laureates : Richard Roberts, Torsten Wiesel, Harald zur Hausen…; Physics laureates : Zhores Alferov, Brian Josephson, Jack Steinberger…; Economics laureates : George Akerlof, Daniel Kahneman, Sir James Mirrlees; film director Jean-Luc Godard, Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra, Warsaw ghetto survivor Martin Gray, Israeli writers David Grossman and Amos Oz. 3 Former Presidents of the European Parliament Nicole Fontaine, Hans-Gert Pöttering, Jerzy Buzek, and 6 Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament in 2014 : Mairead McGuinness, Ildiko Gall-Pelcz, Ryszard Czarnecki, Sylvie Guillaume, Ulrike Lunacek, Dimitrios Papadimoulis.
War in the Summer of 2014
The new year got off to a bad start. For the first time since 2009, we did not get the needed permit to enter Gaza. Hence our Bilingual Experimental Programme was interrupted. So was our network of relations, since the people we know in Gaza scarcely use internet, nor do they use the phone. Needless to say, there are no postal services in Gaza. No letter would get there.
February 2014 : our file was classified as “in progress”. April 2014 : still “in progress”. Blame it on a change in personnel at the gates, or what, we were told we were not considered (anymore) as “humanitarian”.
We pleaded countless times at different levels, still the ax would fall : no access. Bad omen, if anything. Our work proceeded, but in the West Bank only, in various universities, from Jenin to Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem.
Not to underestimate the influence of higher education : good books and the study of languages will take you a long way indeed. Came June 2, 2014, and we learnt that Dr Rami Hamdallah, a linguist who had been President of the An Najah University in Nablus, was confirmed as Prime Minister, at the head of the second Government of National Unity, after the brutal demise of the first one, in the summer of 2006, when some forty members of the Palestinian legislature were taken prisoners (as a retaliatory measure against the capture of the young tank operator Gilad Shalit) – among them, the Vice Prime Minister Nasser Al Shaer, who also was “our minister”, the Minister of Education, the man who was instrumental in getting the Palestinian National Authority to support our Experimental Bilingual Programme in April 2006.
This government is in charge of preparing the next general elections, a process that was frozen in 2006, with the massive arrest of legislators mentioned above.
To us, an encouraging piece of news, since it was established in 2006 that only a strong government, representing all the tendancies of Palestinian public opinion, could implement our Experimental Programme. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Government_of_2014]
This ray of renewed hope did not last long. On June 12, ten days barely after the unity government was formed, three Jewish teenagers were kidnapped in an Israeli-controlled area, and from there all hell broke loose. Immediately, “Hamas” was designated as the prime suspect, which led to the massive arrests of more than 500 of its members and sympathizers in the West Bank. Among them, Dr Aziz Dweik, the Speaker of the Palestinian Parliament – as such, according to Palestinian institutions, the second-in-line after President Abbas.
Strangely, Dr Dweik is the exact opposite of an extremist. A professor in urban geography, with a Ph D in Regional and Architecture Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, practically his whole family has been involved in medical and pharmaceutical studies. Reminding us of the poet’s quote : “they locked up a man who wanted to rule the world; the fools locked up the wrong man”.
Could Dr Dweik be held responsible in anything for the kidnapping of the three teenagers ? Or Hamas for that matter, the usual Bête Noire ? An Israeli journalist, Shlomi Eldar, gives troubling clues on that case, in his inquiry published by Al Monitor, on June 29 : "Accused kidnappers are rogue Hamas branch".
Sadly, and strangely enough, the very next day, the bodies of the three young hitch-hikers were found a few miles away from Hebron, in “Qawasmeh territory”. By Shlomi Eldar again, read "Hebron branch of rogue Hamas wing has dark history" (published on July 2).
More strangely still : the two suspects, members of that “rogue wing” hadn’t been found two months after the crime.
On the same day, July 2, a Palestinian teenager was kidnapped in the Northern suburb of Jerusalem, and burned alive in the small Jerusalem Forest, as “retaliation” for the triple murder in the West Bank.
Six days later, the Israeli Defense Forces launched their “Mighty Cliff Operation” against Gaza, due to the number of rockets fired from there in June and early July.
On this matter, people are of two conflicting views. Some claim that these rockets (including the long-range rockets that can hit Haifa or Jerusalem) are as nothing, since more than 4,000 of them "only" killed 1 civilian, a Bedouin in the Negev desert (in the first days of July). Their contradictors hold the view that just one rocket is enough to drive people crazy and trigger a carnage : on June 28, a paint factory in Sderot was struck by a Qassam, setting it ablaze, sending a huge column of smoke in the sky; on July 3, a short-range Qassam hit a day camp in Sderot, just minutes before the children were due to arrive. On July 11, on the 4th day of the military operation against Gaza, a longer-range rocket hit a gas station in Ashdod, about 40 km from Gaza City, setting it on fire, seriously injuring a disabled man, wounding seven others.
Numbers speak volumes though, when compared to the tolls of the previous operations. As of August 31, 2014, an estimated 11,000 Palestinians have been wounded in 51 days (as opposed to less than 7,000 in 8 years) and around 2,200 have been killed according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza (most of them civilians) – crushing the number of 1,400 for “Cast Lead” and 622 killed for the other four operations altogether. In the same period 66 Israeli soldiers and officers were killed (+6 civilians), 470 of them wounded (+90 civilians).
400,000 Gazans have become refugees in schools, mosques, public structures, including a few churches, or at distant relatives’. Ominously, one of the UN schools was hit by a shell, on July 30, and fifteen refugees were killed in their sleep. UN Aid Chief Pierre Krahenbuhl warned that this was the 6th time one of their schools had been targeted by shelling (check Daily Mail : July 31, 2014). On August 3, another UN school was hit, with some 3,000 displaced persons inside, leaving more than 10 killed (check BBC : UN school hit in Rafah). No place is safe anymore.
The Al Najjar family, who had escaped heavy shelling in their village near the Eastern border to find refuge with relatives in densely populated Khan City, was hit by a missile on July 26, leaving 11 children and 5 women killed. Around thirty of them died in a few days in both locations. Where to go from there?
In what ways this concerns us, and strikes us too :
The boys you see in the pictures [Gaza (Palestine)] are students in Shujaieh, East of Gaza City – the area, with Khuza'a, that most suffered from the military operation in mid-July 2014. How can they relate to Dr King’s approach to non-violent choices, non-violent resistance now ?
The man who took their pictures is a member of the Al Najjar family. How can he continue with our programme, and its philosophy ?
“I believe that even today amid rocket bursts and bullets whining, there’s still hope for a brighter tomorrow” ?
Make no mistake : the one-ton bombs and the $100,000 Hellfire missiles presently targeting Gaza, along with the 32,000 155 mm tank shells fired in July, have not destroyed “the infrastructures of terror” (or if they have here and there, they will be rebuilt in no time). Rather, they have created irreversible damage to the minds of 1 million children and teenagers, making our work in the wake of this onslaught all the more difficult. Almost impossible, in the aftermath of this “inhuman war”.
Short selection of books published since January 2015 about Jihadism
Since January 2015, a great many books have been published about Jihadism at large, and its repercussions in Western Europe, notably in France.
Here is a short selection of some of them (to be continued)
100 Voices for Peace
| Abraham | Daniel | Peace is possible |
| Abuelaish | Izzeldin | I shall not hate |
| Arendt | Hannah | On violence |
| Badinter | Robert | Contre la peine de mort |
| Badinter | Robert | L’abolition |
| Baramki | Gabi | Peaceful resistance |
| Barou | Jean-Pierre | Le courage de la non-violence |
| Benson | Bernard | Le livre de la paix |
| Benson | Bernard | Le livre du bonheur |
| Bernardini | Jean-François | Umani |
| Bernardini | Jean-François | L’autre enquête corse |
| Böll, Sillitoe & co | Heinrich, Alan | Le dernier jour de la guerre |
| Brassens | Georges | Poèmes et chansons |
| Camus | Albert | Lettres à un ami allemand |
| Camus & Koestler | Albert & Arthur | Réflexions sur la peine capitale |
| Carter | Jimmy | We can have peace in the Holy Land |
| Chappell | Captain Paul | Will war ever end ? |
| Chappell | Captain Paul | The end of war |
| Chenoweth, Stephan | Erica, Maria | Why civil resistance works |
| Daeninckx | Didier | Jaurès : Non à la guerre |
| Dalaï Lama | Guérir la violence | |
| Dalaï Lama | Du bonheur de vivre et mourir en paix | |
| del Vasto | Lanza | Technique de la non-violence |
| Dylan | Bob | Collected songs |
| Einstein & Freud | Albert, Sigmund | Warum Krieg ? Pourquoi la guerre ? |
| Einstein & Russell | Albert, Bertrand | Manifesto 50 |
| Erasme | Plaidoyer pour la paix | |
| Gandhi | Mahatma | La voie de la non-violence |
| Gandhi | Mahatma | All men are brothers |
| Gandhi | Mahatma | Mon chemin de paix |
| Gbowee | Leymah | Mighty be our powers |
| Gébé | L’An 01 On arrête tout On réfléchit Et c’est pas triste | |
| Giono | Jean | Ecrits pacifistes |
| Giono | Jean | L’homme qui plantait des arbres |
| Gray & Loisel | Martin & Mélanie | Ma vie en partage |
| Hessel | Stéphane | Citoyen sans frontières |
| Hessel, Larrouturou | Anne, Pierre | Finance, climat, Réveillez-vous ! |
| Hugo | Victor | Contre la peine de mort |
| Huxley | Aldous | The divine within : writings on Enlightenment |
| Jaurès | Jean | Maudite soit la guerre |
| Jünger | Ernst | La paix |
| Kant | Emmanuel | Vers la paix perpétuelle |
| Không | Sœur Chân | La force de l’amour |
| King | Martin Luther | A call to conscience |
| King | Martin Luther | A testament of hope |
| Klein | Naomi | On Fire : the Burning Case for a Green New Deal |
| La Boétie | Etienne de | Discours de la servitude volontaire |
| Lartéguy | Jean | La guerre nue |
| Lecomte | Jacques | La Bonté humaine : empathie, altruisme, générosité |
| Lennon & Ono | John & Yoko | L’ultime entretien |
| Levine & Kline | Peter & Maggie | Trauma-proofing your kids |
| Loisel & Phuc | Mélanie & Kim | Ils ont vécu le siècle |
| Maathai | Wangari | Unbowed / Celle qui plante les arbres |
| Maguire | Mairead | The vision of peace |
| Mandela | Nelson | Conversations with myself |
| Maris | Bernard | L’homme dans la guerre – Genevoix face à Jünger |
| Miller | Henry | The colossus of Maroussi |
| Morrison | Van | Anthology & Collected Lyrics |
| Müller | Jean-Marie | Stratégie de l’action non-violente |
| Muvrini | I | Portu in Core |
| Nhat Hanh | Thich | L’art du pouvoir véritable |
| Nhat Hanh | Thich | La plénitude de l’instant : se réconcilier |
| Nhat Hanh | Thich | La paix, un art, une pratique |
| Nietzsche | F.W. | Ecce homo |
| Nobel peace laureates | The words of peace | |
| Ono | Yoko | Grapefruit |
| Oz | Amos | Comment guérir un fanatique |
| Oz | Amos | Israel, Palestine and Peace |
| Pal | Amitabh | “Islam” means Peace : Muslim principle of N-V |
| Peres | Shimon | Le temps de la paix |
| Piccard | Bertrand | Changer d’altitude |
| Prévot & Fronty | Franck & Aurélia | Wangari Maathaï – La femme qui plante |
| Ricard | Matthieu | Plaidoyer pour l’altruisme |
| Ricard | Matthieu | Plaidoyer pour les animaux |
| Rolland | Romain | Vie de Tolstoï |
| Rose | General Michael | Fighting for peace |
| Rosenberg | Marshall | Speak peace in a world of conflict |
| Ruffin | François | Il est où, le bonheur |
| Saint-Exupéry | Antoine de | Ecrits de guerre |
| Saint-Exupéry | Antoine de | Lettre à un otage |
| Schweitzer | Albert | La paix et le respect de la vie |
| Schweitzer | Albert | Ma vie et ma pensée |
| Sénèque | Apprendre à vivre | |
| Servigne & Chapelle | Pablo & Gauthier | L’entraide, l’autre loi de la jungle |
| Shoufani | Emile | Comme un veilleur attend la paix |
| Thoreau | Henry David | Walden & Civil disobedience |
| Thunberg | Greta | No one is too small to make a difference |
| Tolle | Eckhart | The power of Now |
| Tolle | Eckhart | Nouvelle Terre |
| Tolstoy | Leo | Last steps – the late writings |
| Tutu | Desmond | No future without forgiveness |
| Tutu | Desmond & Mpho | The book of forgiving |
| Wenders & Zournazi | Wim & Mary | Inventing peace |
| Wilkinson & Pickett | Richard & Kate | The Spirit Level : why equality is better for everyone |
| Willem | La paix dans le monde | |
| Young | Neil | Collected songs |
| Yousafzai | Malala | I am Malala |
| Yunus | Muhammad | Creating a world without poverty |
| Zinn, Camus, King… | Howard,Albert,M.L. | The power of non-violence |
| Zweig | Stephan | Conscience contre violence |
Gaza 2025
Whoever doesn’t know yet, or has any doubts about the reality of what is happening in Gaza, take the time to read a report published on August 22, by two Israeli journalists, Yarden Michaeli & Nir Hasson, titled ‘Starvation is Everywhere’, containing what the paper calls ‘disturbing images of starving children’. Which paper ? How we wish the same degree of factual information would be relayed by the Jerusalem Post or Israel National News ! Only Haaretz would have what it takes to confront us with such facts.
Is this a problem for anyone ?
Message from Deir Albalah in Gaza, September 23, 2025
They expelled us from Gaza City by using excessive force. I am now displaced. I’m in Deir Albalah in a small tent. Starting from scratch. No water or food for one week. Today is better. No net connection.
Message from Gaza City, September 13, 2025
We are still in our building but unsafe and distressed due to the ongoing air strikes and shelling.
They stopped Western Union in Gaza. I could not get the money.
Right now, Saturday afternoon, there is remarkable escalation from the occupation forces in our area where they are targeting the buildings and roads from the air and the sea.
Doing this to force us to flee from Gaza to the South.
No places and no transport as well.
Message from Gaza City, September 7, 2025
Can’t so far open another account. Still waiting for updates from Lloyd’s. In vain.
It is not the sum of money. It is a third world war on Gaza. Not to allow any money into Gaza.
Message from Gaza City, September 2, 2025
Two months ago they blocked my account, and then removed the restrictions, but by mid-August they closed my account without any reason, and I haven’t received the money you sent. My UK current account is still closed and I am unable to transfer the money to my local home account. I raised a complaint but still they haven’t responded. I am helpless in this case. I called Lloyd’s bank today and they kept me holding on without any progress.
Yes we are still in our partially damaged building near Barcelona Park which is now full of tents for the displaced people. We can find some food now, such as red lentils and pasta and flour. Some canned food as well. No meat or chicken or fish or vegetables.
Message from our contact at the Ministry of Education in Gaza, August 29, 2025
You are right; grief and anger walk beside us every day here. At times I drown in sadness, at other times rage boils inside me. Yet, as you wrote, we must discipline our hearts so that bitterness does not consume us. I try to remind myself of that with every child I see, with every hungry family we feed.
By the way I am so mad and upset, maybe sad too! The remaining parts of my damaged flat and the flats of my brothers were totally flattened yesterday! I was dreaming of letting my sisters anf nieces to stay in my flat! Now my flat which was in the fourth storey is a pile of rubble sitting on the ground!
I remember well those days when you came with Martin Luther King’s book and met the deputy minister of education and I remember your dream of teaching non-violent resistance in Gaza’s schools. That vision has not vanished, even if our reality today is harsher than ever. It remains a seed, waiting for its time.
You are also right about the West, about Ukraine, about how quickly the world moves on from one suffering to another. But here, we cannot move on. We carry our martyrs in our arms, we bury our loved ones, and we continue — because survival itself is resistance.
Thank you for remembering me, for remembering Gaza, for remembering humanity. Even your sadness and anger are proof that your soul is alive in a world where so many souls have grown numb.
God bless you too, my dear friend. Pray for me, for my family, and for all those who still breathe in Gaza’s ashes. One day, by God’s will, we will sit together again and speak of these dark years as something we overcame.
With all my affection and gratitude,
Adam
Message from Gaza City, August 25, 2025
We could hardly sleep or think what to do due to the ongoing air strikes in the nearby area to our building in Gaza. We are stressed and helpless as we don’t know where to go and how.
Don’t have real friends in my area as most of the tents are full of strangers and displaced refugees.
I maintain contacts by phone with my brothers and sisters in the South.
Message from Gaza City, August 19, 2025
Dearest brother, I haven’t received the money because they closed my account without any reason. (…) They want to please the occupation. Two months ago they blocked my account, and then they removed the restrictions. Please call them from your end (…)
Gaza is under heavy shelling and bombardment nearby our towers. We are distressed and confused and unable to decide what to do if they force us to leave Gaza…
Message from Al-Najjar, somewhere in Gaza, August 18, 2025
Thank you for your messages and concern
Yes, Dr. Hamdi is my cousin,,, not the son of my direct uncle,,, All the Al-Najjars are my cousins.
May Allah have mercy on his soul and the souls of his children and grant patience to his wife Dr. Alaa and full recovery to Adam.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyvg91qp52o June 2, 2025
Gaza doctor whose nine children were killed in Israeli strikes dies from injury]
I really appreciate all that you and all the supporters of Gaza and Palestine do outside, yet this has not stopped a single drop of blood to be shed !
We have lost faith in the so-called humanity and the World ! The so-called international human law is a trivial boring and stale joke!
You need not me to remind you that if we were Ukrainians or had blonde hair, blue-colored eyes, or our murderers were not Jews, then the whole world would never spare any effort to stop the massacres and famine we are subjected to !
This world is very hypocritical and complicit, the world is also directly and closely participating in the massacres committed against us.
We will never surrender, this is our land and Palestine is ours …
Hours after i sent you my message on 16 May, my very beloved nephew Ayesh was brutally massacred by a Jewish missile which murdered him instantly. For several hours no one could identify him because of the wounds and blood,,, We identified him by his clothes, watch and ring. He was a father of an angelic little boy. I personally will never forgive the murder of my nephew Ayesh, his parents, sister, 3 nephews, 2 cousins and many, many of his and my relatives and friends. I will never forgive the brutal murder of the more than 60,000 souls who were brutally massacred.
22 consecutive months of massacres, bloodshed and famine are enough for the damned world to collectively move… as they have done to Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Russia and other places ! Shame on the damned world !
I want to stop here because i dont want to say things out of my anger !
Message from Gaza City, July 30, 2025
Killing and bombing are still ongoing. There is now widespread starvation and hunger everywhere. We are unable to move or walk because of lack of food especially flour.
Thieves steal food aids and sell them at astronomic high prices. Indeed most difficult times of the war due to genocide, famine and hunger.
We dream day & night of how to secure little food to survive and remain alive in this unjust world. We are in a very bad need for food parcels and flour in particular.
Do your friends in Palestine have any society or organization in Gaza which can provide us with some flour and food parcels. Please do your best.
News from Gaza City, June 29, 2025
Starvation and killing still going on. They distribute food parcels in a savage way. …/…
Prices are incredible, especially flour and sugar. Hard times again. Shortage in everything.
News from Gaza City, May 9, 2025
Sorry for late reply due to hard times conditions.
Starvation is evident everywhere. …/…
News from Gaza City, April 24, 2025
They don’t allow any food or fuel supply or drugs to enter Gaza. …/…
We eat once a day.
News from Gaza City, April 15, 2025
The siege is very tight. Not enough food or water. No electricity at all. We walk four miles to get water to our building. …/… No medication as well for my high blood pressure.
Message from Gaza City, March 29, 2025
We are eating very much less, and same food rice or red lentils. No net in my area. Hope for truce or ceasefire again. There is shelling now. …/…
Message from Gaza City, February 26, 2025
Message from Gaza City, February 22, 2025
Bathing once every 10 days: The reality of northern Gaza’s water crisis
Maram Humaid, Al Jazeera, February 21, 2025
Message from Gaza City, Sunday, February 2, 2025
Message from Deir al-Balah, January 21, 2025
Message from a refugees’ camp in the South, January 8, 2025
Message from another shelter yet, December 20, 2024