Israel's new wave of refugees

"I experienced a lot of torture, bad experiences in my country," recalls Gabriel, a young but weathered representative of Tel Aviv's Eritrean community. "After my education they put me in the prison and sent me to the army. They did it to humiliate and degrade me. There was a protest from the university students and because of that they take revenge and put us all in prison and then send us to the army to harm us."

Last Friday two refugees were shot dead by Egyptian border police while attempting to cross into Israel. The experiences of African refugees seeking asylum in Israel is an oft-neglected story in the Western media.

I recently interviewed African refugees in Tel Aviv, Israel, on their experiences and aspirations. You can read the story here.

A nation imprisoned

THIS month marks the 41st year of Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territories. For ordinary Palestinians the occupation has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a giant prison. “[This] occupation put[s] you in a cage, a cage on your life and on your mind so you never feel safe,” says Mahmoud, an activist with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Mustafa Qadri, Dawn Newspaper (Pakistan), 20 June 2006.

The Rural Frontline

In all the villages I visited the one common feature was the constant sense of insecurity, something Jamal constantly pointed out during our conversation. "Life is very difficult and I am always worried that one of my children will wander near the settlement and I will never seem them again."

Another of my pieces on settler violence in the Occupied Territories has just been published by NewMatilda.com.

Shooting back at the settlers

The Guardian has just posted one of my reports on Jewish Settler violence in the occupied West Bank:

As I saw with my own eyes three weeks ago, Susia is now a collection of tents and partially-built structures surrounded on three sides by Israeli settlements and a military outpost. Where once there were 800 families living in Susia, today there are only 26 left.

Interviews with Palestinian fighters

When I arranged to meet Palestinian fighters I expected to meet larger than life characters, fearsome men not unlike the Special Forces of Israeli folklore with a cavalier attitude to life and death. Instead I found broken men trying to piece their lives back together. I spoke to fighters from the PLO's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades and the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. All were in their 20s, all had been abused in an Israeli jail, and all were seeking qualifications or employment.

Over the past two weeks I've been interviewing Palestinian fighters from a range of militant groups. My first article based on these interviews was published in NewMatilda.com today. You can read it here.