MER Article Economics of Palestinian Return Migration Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza have faced a series of economic shocks since the Gulf war. Each shock alone would have been difficult to weather, but combined they have led to a considerable worsening of economic conditions. These shocks included the Gulf war, Israeli closures of the W Ward Sayre, Jennifer Olmsted • 6 min read
Gaza's Workers and the Palestinian Authority The story of the January 1995 strike in a private health clinic in Gaza City was published in only one paper, al-Watan, a new weekly affiliated with Hamas. Neither al-Quds nor al-Nahar, dailies in tune with the Palestinian Authority (PA), reported on the first workers’ strike under Palestinian self- Amira Hass • 11 min read
MER Article An Interview with Salah 'Abd al-Shafi Salah ‘Abd al-Shafi directs the Economic Development Group in Gaza. Graham Usher, a journalist currently working in the Gaza Strip, interviewed him in September and October 1993. What do you think the agreement means economically? Graham Usher • 7 min read
MER Article Rabin's Gaza "Goodwill Gesture" Gazans stand in the wreckage of their home, destroyed by Israeli anti-tank missiles and dynamite. Some 20 families in the al-Amal quarter of Khan Yunis were made homeless on February 11 when more than 200 Israeli soldiers and border police carried out a 13-hour military assault in search of “terrori (Author not identified) • 1 min read
"What Elections? When?" At the southernmost tip of the Gaza Strip, 35 kilometers south of Gaza City, lies the city of Rafah and its refugee camps. Of the total population of 110,000, 78,000 are refugees. A Rafah resident, ‘Isam Younis, interviewed a 28-year old worker from Rafah’s Shabura refugee camp. (Author not identified) • 2 min read
MER Article Cossali and Robson, Stateless in Gaza Paul Cossali and Clive Robson, Stateless in Gaza (London: Zed Press, 1986). Stateless in Gaza comprises interviews with 60 Gazans -- from women activists to housewives, from resistance writers to laborers in Israel -- who talk about life in the occupied strip. Cossali, a teacher and solidarity acti Rania Atalla • 1 min read
MER Article Letter (July/August 1988) I would appreciate your publishing in Middle East Report the information that Zed Books has agreed to withdraw from circulation and pulp all remaining copies of Bantustan Gaza by Richard Locke and Anthony Stewart. This action has been taken at my request on the grounds that substantial portions of t (Author not identified) • 1 min read
MER Article Uprising in Gaza One year before the Palestinian mass uprising began, the writing was on the grey cement walls of refugee camp houses in Gaza, where you could read the anguish of Gaza camp residents at the spectacle of the Amal militia bombarding Palestinians in the camps in Lebanon. These attacks forged a real unit Anita Vitullo Khoury • 11 min read
MER Article Gaza Diary FEBRUARY 7, 1988, MORNING “Welcome to Gaza,” the sign reads, but the streets are not inviting. The long road into town is nearly deserted, its shops and shanties locked shut; only a few men gather sporadically for coffee or a cigarette. Beyond, the camps stretch toward the sea like a giant junkyard Melissa Baumann • 14 min read
MER Article Gaza Ghetto Pea Holmquist, Joan Mandell and Pierre Bjorklund, Gaza Ghetto: Portrait of a Palestinian Family, 1948-1984 (Icarus Films, 1984). Taline Voskeritchian • 4 min read
MER Article Document: The Mind of the Censor Gaza Ghetto, a documentary film about a Palestinian family in the occupied Gaza Strip by MERIP editor Joan Mandell and Swedish filmmakers Pea Holmquist and Pierre Bjorklund, premiered in Stockholm in November 1984. In January 1985, a Palestinian theater company in Jerusalem, El-Hakawati, purchased a (Author not identified) • 4 min read
"I Am the Arabs from Gaza!" According to the most recent statistics, 48,702 workers from the Occupied Territories were employed in Israel in July of 1984: 13,879 in construction; 18,423 in industry; 12,804 in services; and 3,596 in agriculture. Given the fact that this estimate was made by the employment office -- whose figure (Author not identified) • 4 min read