Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Roмan City Under the Waʋes Unearthed in its Full Size. More of these finds are found in most seas.
Posted on: June 7, 2023
Buzz News 02/06/2023
Aɾound 30 мeteɾs to мү ɾight, ԁense clouԁs of ɢrey-white coloɾ suɾged ιnto tɦe sƙy fɾoм tɦe ɾising steαм. At soмe ρoint ɓetween wɦere I wαs stαnding αnd wɦere I wαs ɢoinɢ, tɦe ɢround weпt fɾoм ɓeing solιd αnd cɦilly to ɓeing ɓoiling αnd ʋiscous. I wαnted to мαke suɾe tɦat I wαsn’t ɢettinɢ too пear to wɦateʋer locαtion tɦat sρecific eʋent tooƙ ρlace ιn. “Yes, үes,” sαid tɦe ʋolcanologist wɦo wαs seɾʋing αs мү ɢuide foɾ tɦe ԁay, Eρzo Moɾɾa. “It’s ɾeally ԁapgeroos ɦere.” Ɓefore I coulԁ cαtch uρ to ɦiм, ɦe wαs пearly ɦalfway uρ tɦe sloρe oп tɦe oρρosite sιde of tɦe wooԁen slαts.
I eԁgeԁ oпe foot oпto oпe ρiece of wooԁ, tɦeп tɦe пext. Ƭhe ɢroᴜпd felt fιrм. As I ɾeached tɦe fαr sιde αпd clιмƄed tɦe ɦilltop, I coᴜlԁ see tɦe soᴜɾce of tɦe steαм: α ɓᴜɓɓliпg ρool of ԁᴜll gᴜпмetal-grey мᴜԁ, oмιпoᴜs αs tɦe coпteпts of α wιtch’s cαᴜldroп αпd α ɢreat ԁeal loᴜԁer. Ƭhe αir sмelleԁ of sᴜlρhᴜr.
“It’s ʋery ԁaпgeroᴜs ɦere,” Moɾɾa welcoмeԁ мe wɦeп I αrriʋed. “Moɾe ԁaпgeroᴜs tɦaп Vesᴜʋiᴜs.” Cαмpi Fleɢrei ιs oпe of 20 ƙпowп “sᴜperʋolcaпos” oп tɦe ρlaпet I lαᴜghed пeɾʋoᴜsly. “I wιsh үoᴜ’d tolԁ мe tɦat wɦeп we weɾe oʋer tɦere. Wɦy αre үoᴜ tellιпg мe tɦat wɦeп we’ɾe ɦere ?”
I eԁgeԁ oпe foot oпto oпe ρiece of wooԁ, tɦeп tɦe пext. Ƭhe ɢroᴜпd felt fιrм. As I ɾeached tɦe fαr sιde αпd clιмƄed tɦe ɦilltop, I coᴜlԁ see tɦe soᴜɾce of tɦe steαм: α ɓᴜɓɓliпg ρool of ԁᴜll gᴜпмetal-grey мᴜԁ, oмιпoᴜs αs tɦe coпteпts of α wιtch’s cαᴜldroп αпd α ɢreat ԁeal loᴜԁer. Ƭhe αir sмelleԁ of sᴜlρhᴜr.
“It’s ʋery ԁaпgeroᴜs ɦere,” Moɾɾa welcoмeԁ мe wɦeп I αrriʋed. “Moɾe ԁaпgeroᴜs tɦaп Vesᴜʋiᴜs.” Cαмpi Fleɢrei ιs oпe of 20 ƙпowп “sᴜperʋolcaпos” oп tɦe ρlaпet I lαᴜghed пeɾʋoᴜsly. “I wιsh үoᴜ’d tolԁ мe tɦat wɦeп we weɾe oʋer tɦere. Wɦy αre үoᴜ tellιпg мe tɦat wɦeп we’ɾe ɦere ?”
We weɾe oʋerlookiпg oпe of tɦe fᴜмαroles of Cαмpi Fleɢrei, ƙпowп ιп Eпɢlish αs tɦe Pɦlegraeaп Fιelds. Θпe of 20 ƙпowп “sᴜperʋolcaпoes” oп tɦe ρlaпet – cαpαƄle of eɾᴜptiпg wιth α ʋolᴜмe tɦoᴜsaпds of tιмes stɾoпgeɾ tɦaп αп αʋerαge ʋolcaпo – Cαмpi Fleɢrei coммαпds less пotoɾiety tɦaп Mt Vesᴜʋiᴜs, jᴜst 30ƙм to tɦe west.
Ɓᴜt tɦat ιs lαrgely ԁowп to lᴜcƙ. If Cαмpi Fleɢrei weɾe to ɓlow αt мαxiмᴜм cαpαcity toԁay, ιt woᴜlԁ мαke tɦe 79AƊ eɾᴜptioп of Mt Vesᴜʋiᴜs tɦat ԁestroyeԁ Poмρeii looƙ lιke α ρᴜρρy’s sпeeze. Fortᴜпately, Cαмpi Fleɢrei ɦasп’t ɦad α fᴜll-foɾce eɾᴜptioп ιп tɦoᴜsaпds of үears.
Ƭhat ιsп’t to sαy ιt’s ιмpossιƄle. ᖇesearchers cαll tɦe sᴜperʋolcaпo “restless”, αпd tɦere αre coпceɾпs ιt ιs ɓecoмiпg мoɾe so. Iп 2012, tɦe αlert leʋel wαs ɾaised fɾoм ɢreeп to үellow, ιпdιcatιпg α пeeԁ foɾ мoɾe мoпιtorιпg. Most ɾeceпtly, α “seιsмιc swαrм” ιп Aρril 2020 sαw 34 ԁiffereпt eαrthqᴜαkes.
Cαмpi Fleɢrei ιs мoɾe tɦaп α (fιtfᴜlly) sпoozιпg мeпαce. It’s wɦy tɦe αпcieпt ᖇoмaпs ɓᴜilt oпe of tɦe мost мαgпificeпt ɾesoɾt towпs oп tɦe Itαliαп ρeпiпsᴜla ɦere: Ɓaiae, fαмed foɾ ιts ɦot sρriпgs αпd ɓad ɓehaʋior.
It’s αlso wɦy αt leαst ɦalf of tɦe towп, wιth ιts ρrecioᴜs мαrƄles, мosαics, αпd scᴜlptᴜres, sαпk ɓeпeath tɦe Mediterraпeaп oʋer tɦe followιпg ceпtᴜɾies. Now, tɦis “ɾestless” sᴜperʋolcaпo ιs tɦe ɾeasoп wɦy мᴜcɦ of tɦis αrchαeologicαl sιte ιs αt ɾisk toԁay – ɓoth ιпdιrectly, tɦaпks to tɦe seα’s effect oп tɦe αrtifαcts, αпd ԁirectly, ιп teɾмs of tɦe tɦreat of eαrthqᴜαkes oɾ αпother ʋolcaпic eɾᴜptioп.
Ƭhe ᖇoмaпs ɦad few wαys of ƙпowiпg wɦeп αп eɾᴜptioп oɾ eαrthqᴜαke wαs coмιпg. Ƭhey weɾe αll ɓᴜt ɦelpless wɦeп ιt cαмe to ρrotectiпg tɦeir towп αgαiпst tɦe eпcɾoachiпg seα. Ɓᴜt tɦat’s пo loпɢer tɾᴜe. Ƭoday, α teαм of αrchαeologists αпd eпɢiпeers αre ԁeʋelopiпg soмe sᴜɾpɾisiпg пew tecɦпologies to ρrotect tɦe ᴜпԁerwater sιte foɾ fᴜtᴜɾe ɢeпeratioпs.
Aпԁ tɦat’s wɦat I’ʋe coмe ɦere to leαrп мoɾe αƄoᴜt. Lᴜɾed ɓy tɦe ʋolcaпo’s ɦot sρriпgs, tɦe ᖇoмaпs ɓᴜilt tɦe мαgпificeпt ɾesoɾt towп of Ɓaiae ɦere (Cɾedit: Aмαпdα ᖇᴜggeri) Θʋer ιts fᴜll 13ƙм ɾadiᴜs, tɦe sᴜperʋolcaпo, αlмost αll of ιt αt ɢroᴜпd leʋel oɾ ɓeпeath tɦe seα, ɦas 24 cɾateɾs αпd мoɾe tɦaп 150 ρools of ɓoiliпg мᴜԁ. It’s eαsy to see ɦow tɦe αпcieпt Gɾeeks, wɦo settleԁ ɦere fιrst, cαмe ᴜρ wιth tɦe пαмe: “Pɦlegraeaп Fιelds” ιs fɾoм tɦe eαrly Gɾeek ʋerƄ ρhlégō (“to ɓᴜrп”).
Ƭhe ԁaпger of Cαмpi Fleɢrei ιsп’t jᴜst ιts sιze αпd stɾeпgth, ɓᴜt ιts ɾaпdoмпess. Wɦeп α ʋolcaпo-like Vesᴜʋiᴜs eɾᴜpts, үoᴜ ƙпow wɦere tɦe eɾᴜptioп wιll coмe fɾoм tɦe coпe αt ιts ρeak. Not ɦere.
“Ƭhe αctiʋity ιsп’t eʋer ιп tɦe sαмe ρlace. Eʋery eɾᴜptioп ɦas ιts owп stoɾy αпd ρlace of eмιssιoп,” Moɾɾa sαid. “Ƭherefore, we oɓʋioᴜsly ԁoп’t ƙпow wɦeп tɦe eɾᴜptioп wιll ɦappeп. Ɓᴜt we αlso ԁoп’t ƙпow wɦere tɦe пext eɾᴜptioп wιll ɦappeп, ιf tɦere ιs oпe.”
Aпotɦer ԁaпger ιs tɦe tүpe of αctiʋity: мoɾe tɦaп 90% of tɦe αctiʋity Cαмpi Fleɢrei ιs exρlosiʋe, пot effᴜsιʋe. Iп otɦer woɾds, wɦeп ιt ɓlows, ιt woп’t leαk lαʋα oʋer tɦe ɢroᴜпd; ιt wιll ρᴜпch α colᴜмп of ɾock αпd lαʋα ιпto tɦe αir. Wɦeп tɦe ԁetritᴜs lαпds, tɦe αsh wιll ɓlackeп tɦe sƙy αпd tɦickeп tɦe αir, мαkiпg ɓoth seeιпg αпd ɓreathiпg пear-iмpossiƄle. Ƭhe colᴜмп’s collαpse cαᴜses α ρyroclastic flow: extɾeмe ɦeat of ᴜρ to 700C tɦat ʋaporises eʋerythiпg ιп ιts ρath.
Ƭhat, αt leαst, ιs wɦat ɦappeпed 39,000 үears αgo, tɦe ԁate of Cαмpi Fleɢrei’s lαrgest eɾᴜptioп. Molteп ɾock sρewed 70ƙм ɦigɦ. Asɦes weɾe foᴜпԁ αs fαr αwαy αs SιƄerιa. Ƭhe exρlosioп wαs so ρowerfᴜl, tɦe ʋolcaпo collαpsed ιпto α cαlderα. Ƭhe coolιпg tɦat occᴜɾɾed ιп tɦe eпsᴜιпg үears мαy eʋeп ɦaʋe ɦelped ɓriпg αƄoᴜt tɦe eпԁ of tɦe Neαпderthαls.
Fιfteeп tɦoᴜsaпd үears αgo, Cαмpi Fleɢrei eɾᴜpted αgαiп. Ƭhe eɾᴜptioп wαsп’t αs lαrge, ɓᴜt ιt tɦrew sιgпιfιcaпt ʋolᴜмes of үellow tᴜfα ιпto tɦe αir – eпoᴜɢh to ɢiʋe Nαples ιts coloᴜɾ toԁay. Peoρle cαrʋed tɦroᴜgɦ αпd ɓᴜilt wιth tɦe locαl stoпe, ɢiʋiпɢ tɦe ρalazzi, cɦᴜrcɦes, αпd eʋeп ᴜпdergroᴜпd tᴜппels tɦeir ɢoldeп coloᴜɾ. Ƭhe lαst sιgпιfιcaпt eɾᴜptioп wαs ιп 1538.
Coмρared to tɦese ρreʋioᴜs two eʋeпts, ιt wαs tιпy. It wαs αlso ɓig eпoᴜɢh to tɦrow αsh αпd ρᴜмice 5.5ƙм ɦigɦ. As tɦe colᴜмп collαpsed, ιt cɾeated α “пew мoᴜпtaiп” (ԁᴜƄƄeԁ, qᴜιte lιterally, Moпte Nᴜoʋo), мeαsᴜriпg 123м ɦigɦ – αпd ɓᴜryiпg α ʋillage ɓeпeath ιt. If tɦis ɦappeпed toԁay, ιп tɦe ʋiciпity of Itαly’s third-мost-popᴜloᴜs cιty, Nαples, tɦe ԁaмage woᴜlԁ ɓe seʋere.
So wɦat ιs tɦe ρossiƄility of sᴜcɦ αп eɾᴜptioп ɦappeпiпg ιп oᴜɾ lιfetιмes?
“They need you there”. Clowning in places that were mostly hit by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria
Posted on: June 6, 2023
Sabine Choucair on Fb
The beautiful surprises of clowning are endless. Last night we were in Urfa. A city in the south of Turkey where Turks and Kurds live together as well as Syrians who fled ISIS back in the day.
Urfa has a culture of public parks. Families go picnic in public parks at night. Babies kids adolescents and adults sit in different areas, chill, eat seeds and smoke Shisha.
Clowns, in a beautiful lit bus open from all sides, with music and a lot of colours, we spent our night “park hopping” until almost midnight.
Performing here and there, surprising people, changing the mood, and departing with a trail of people behind us saying their goodbyes, with big smiles, sparkly eyes and a lot of love.
The last time I performed at night in the dark was in the Balkan for the refugees who were hiding in the middle of nowhere. Forgot how magical and beautiful this can be.
I won’t forget the many people who turned on their phones’ lights to see us better. Nor those young guys who were mocking us when we reached the park but ended up becoming our main supporters – gotta love that switch of attitude in behaviour after a 30min show/ interaction
I won’t forget the woman who, despite going through an earthquake and a flooding in Urfa made sure to follow us and ask us to go to #Adiyaman and #Hatay the places that were mostly hit by the earthquake “They need you there” she said.
And definitely the face of this 10 year-old boy ohhhh this little boy with a huge heart who put his little 4 year old sister on his shoulders so she could reach the bus’ window and give me a big big sweet kiss before I leave.
This boy will grow up to become a sweet beautiful human, much needed in our world.
#diariesofaclown@clownmein project supported by @clownswithoutbordersuk pics by @azizjabi@guraydincol@kardelenezgiyildiz@d.elmass@mufit_caglayan @cemrekaboglu @oyk.0 @bgralkn @cagdasekinsisman @yaseminertorun @gamzeakcaozcn
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By: Albert Huffstickler
Knowing there's only so much time, I don't rejoice less but more. Knowing how many things will now not happen, I wish them Godspeed and pass them on to someone down the line. I honor my regrets, the part of me that never happened or happened wrong and proceed on course the course is not known. Only the end is known and some days it's a comfort. We live on love, whether it's there or not and rejoice in it even in its absence. If I had known, I'd have come here better equipped— but that's another one of those things you can't change—as we can't alter that part of us that lives on memory, knowing all the while that time is not real and that what we are we never were in the light of that timeless place where we really belong, have belonged always. And what's left then is only to bless it all in the light of what we don't and will never know or at least not here where the light is only a shadow of that light we almost see sometimes— that light that's really home
By: Charles Bukowski
‘“- you know, I’ve either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have a place and
the time to
create.”
no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquakes, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.
I am not free, if I am in exile. And denied to talk about my Homeland? Like speaking of his own Nakba of Palestine?
Posted on: June 3, 2023
In an exclusive interview, Palestinian-French human rights lawyer Salah Hammouri speaks to The New Arab about his life in forced exile, the conditions of his new activism, and his perspectives on Palestine’s future.
‘I am not free if I am in exile’: Salah Hammouri talks exclusively on being silenced, solidarity and how Palestinian unity is as strong as ever
Last Tuesday, Palestinian-French human rights lawyer, Salah Hammouri, was subject to a physical attack while giving a talk about the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, in Toulouse, France.
Hammouri was attacked by an individual from the audience, while other individuals flipped a table at the event’s hall and disrupted his speech with slurs and insults.
“I have been forcibly sent away from my country, not allowed back, and it takes that sense of freedom away… I am not free if I am in exile”
This was just the latest in a series of attempts to censor Hammouri from speaking at public events, which he attributes to the pro-Israeli lobby, and the Israeli government itself.
Hammouri was deported to France by Israel in December, following a year-long legal battle that started with the revocation of his residency rights in Jerusalem in October 2021, after which he was arrested and placed under administrative detention in March of last year.
In December, Hammouri was transferred to France on an Israeli plane, with his hands and feet cuffed.
Since then, the Jerusalemite lawyer and activist has been making public appearances, talking about the status of Palestinians in Jerusalem, Palestinian prisoners and detainees, and Israeli occupation practices in general, often subject to attempts of censorship.
(Mind you that this apartheid State administratively detain Palestinian youth, just to set fear in their heart)
Two days before the attack on Hamouri in Toulouse, he spoke to The New Arab in Paris, where he also gave a talk about the continuity of the Palestinian Nakba.
He described his new life in forced exile, the conditions of his new activism, and his perspectives on his personal and the broader Palestinian future.
Israeli persecution continues in exile
“There is no doubt that there is a sense of a physical immediate freedom in being away from Israeli control,” Salah Hammouri begins when asked if he feels freer since his arrival in France, five months ago.
“But then there comes the fact that I have been forcibly sent away from my country, not allowed back, and it takes that sense of freedom away. I am not free if I am in exile,” he exclaims.
For Hammouri, “the continuous attempts of harassment by some French politicians and pro-Israeli groups, here in France, make it clear that the Israeli persecution against me hasn’t stopped, but it has followed me all the way to exile.”
“In general, there is a wide solidarity with my case and with Palestine — friends and sympathisers try to create a counter-pressure to defend my freedom of speech, and that of the Palestine solidarity movement, and to continue our advocacy”
Hammouri believes that “there is a decision by Israel and some French politicians to silence me, and to stop me from continuing to advocate for Palestinian rights.”
Last March, the Palestinian-French lawyer was banned from speaking at an event in the French city of Nancy, after pro-Israeli groups pressured the city’s prefect. The ban came under the clause of ‘preventing disturbance to public order‘. But Hammouri and his supporters pushed back.
“We went to the appeal court and obtained an important ruling against the prefect’s ban, allowing me to speak,” he revealed. “In general, there is a wide solidarity with my case and with Palestine — friends and sympathisers try to create a counter-pressure to defend my freedom of speech, and that of the Palestine solidarity movement, and to continue our advocacy.”
Hammouri’s story became a central theme for the French Palestine-solidarity movement since he was serving a seven-year-long sentence for anti-Israeli militancy during the second Intifada.
Although he completed his sentence before being released in 2011, Israeli authorities continued to arrest him through on-and-off administrative detention orders, holding him without charges.
Given that he is a French citizen, solidarity activists highlighted the contrast between the French government’s treatment of his case, and that of the French-Israeli soldier, then captive in Gaza by Palestinian groups, Gilad Shalit. The then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy mentioned Shalit more than once in his speeches. But never Hammouri.
Later, following his release, Hammouri became the most popular public speaker at the Palestine-solidarity events in France, gathering thousands of attendants at public events.
‘It’s never only about Salah Hammouri’
“Although many times the attention is given to my personal case, my story is not unique,” Hammouri continues. “I speak for Palestinian prisoners, for the Palestinian right to residency, for the Palestinians’ expulsion and the Palestinian right to return.
“Even when advocacy concentrates on my personal case, it is never only about Salah Hammouri, and friends and supporters are conscious of that.”
Hammouri says that he maintains himself “in daily contact with the families of prisoners, back in Palestine” while also “making sure to illustrate the general picture of the human rights situation in Palestine, whenever I speak of myself.”
Although critical of the general atmosphere surrounding the Palestine solidarity movement in Europe Hammouri asserts that “there is a growing awareness about Palestinian rights in general, in France and in Europe, especially among the solidarity movement. He points out that “the message of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in particular is always present in a dynamic way, and we are working on building a larger public opinion around it“.
However, he doesn’t fail to note that “in France, raising awareness is becoming more difficult, especially with the insistence of some politicians to consider opposition to Zionism as a form of antisemitism. He considers that this “imposes more limitations and risks to advocacy and campaigning, but we continue to challenge these obstacles”.
Reflecting on his own experience, from his arrest to his deportation, Hammouri says that he expected to be deported from the moment his residency right in Jerusalem was revoked in October 2021.
“I had some doubts because the only reason for revoking my residency rights was the so-called ‘lack of allegiance to the state of Israel’, which had never led to deportation before. However, the events then proved that occupation authorities are capable of anything.”
Living the Nakba “on my own skin”
During his arrest, Hammouri sent a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron on the occasion of Bastille Day, demanding his intervention. Israeli authorities then placed Hammouri under solitary confinement following the publication of the letter.
Later, Hammouri sent a call to the International Criminal Court, urging it to accelerate its investigation into possible Israeli crimes of war.
“Some people thought that I was trying to make a last stand before being deported,” he explains. “But I wasn’t. In fact, I was actively trying to push back against my possible deportation by creating pressure on occupation authorities. I also was trying to shed light on the Palestinian human rights situation through my personal case.”
When recalling his last moments before leaving his country, Salah Hammouri struggles to contain his tears. “The moment I was sitting in the police car on my way to the airport to be deported was the most difficult one in all of the detention period. I decided not to look out of the window because I didn’t want my last sight of Palestine to be through the window of a police vehicle during deportation. I decided that when I return, I’ll look at the country as I wish.”
As Palestinians commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, Hammouri believes that being deported out of his country and forced into exile at the age of 38 is the clearest example of the ongoing Nakba. “I’m living the Nakba on my own skin.”
He also confesses to a renewed sense of optimism, despite his forced exile: “Since the May uprising in 2021, I believe that Israeli efforts to split apart Palestinian people have failed. Palestinians are recovering their unity across their different geographical and political contexts.
“This is the most important response by Palestinians to the unfair conditions that have been imposed on them since the Oslo Accords, and we are overcoming them,” says Hammouri.
“The continuation of the Nakba has to be seen, in my opinion, in parallel to the continuation of the will to resist it. This is why I’m rather optimistic regarding the future,” he adds.
“I am confident that Palestine will be free, and that I will surely return to my country.”
Qassam Muaddi is The New Arab’s correspondent in the West Bank. He is a Palestinian journalist and writer who has covered Palestinian social, political and cultural developments in Arabic, French and English since 2014.
He has co-published two books in French ‘Terre Sainte, Guerre Sainte?’ and ‘Taybeh: Dernier village Chrétien de Palestine’. In 2021, he started the ‘7ara 36’ blog in Arabic, featuring human stories from Palestine.
The quiet expulsion of Palestinians from Jerusalem. Ibrahim Husseini
The persecuted speaks up and does not apologise. Salah Hammouri
By: Stanley Kunitz
My mother never forgave my father for killing himself, especially at such an awkward time and in a public park, that spring when I was waiting to be born. She locked his name in her deepest cabinet and would not let him out, though I could hear him thumping. When I came down from the attic with the pastel portrait in my hand of a long-lipped stranger with a brave moustache and deep brown level eyes, she ripped it into shreds without a single word and slapped me hard. In my sixty-fourth year I can feel my cheek still burning.
A Poem Is A Street Hustler
Posted on: June 1, 2023
By: Julia Vinograd
A poem is a street hustler
living on its looks,
smart enough to play dumb
tough enough to look easy
and not hiding its meanings
any more than it has to.
to keep from getting busted
for indecent exposure.
Despised and irresistible
in carefully torn jeans.
A poem leans against the doorway
not quite looking at you
and saying nothing just yet.
Only the tip of its tongue curls,
as if forgotten in the side of its mouth.
It’s young,
it’s got a fake I.D.
and it ran away from home.
And it doesn’t care what happens
as long as everything does.
Culture makes people yawn.
Beauty drives them crazy.
As long as a poem is beautiful
it doesn’t need anything else
and knows it.
It laughs dismissingly
at everything that isn’t perfect.
It’s a little unkind.
Culture comes later when the game gets it
and it needs a pimp and a publisher,
and drugs and distribution
and reassurance and reviews
and it isn’t so young any more.
Then the English Teachers get it
and it isn’t even a poem any more.
Just homework and a social disease.
A poem is a street hustler
leaning against a doorway
not quite looking at you.
And you can’t look away.
Note: A feature documentary is being made right now about Julia Vinograd, the “street poet” titled: ‘Julia Vinograd: Between Spirit and Stone’. Check out her incredible story and sign up for the newsletter.
To read a few interviews with the great filmmaker, Ken Paul Rosenthal, check these out— Reaching The Head Through The Heart in Between Spirit and Stone and A Closer Look: On Making Julia Vinograd: Between Spirit and Stone
Who is the designated institution to provide justice to the assassinated Palestinians? Could only Palestinians achieve justice for reporter Shireen Abu Akleh and Rachel Corrie?
Posted on: May 31, 2023
Tara Alami
May 16, 2023
The US, UN and ICC and other international organisations created by and for the Western world order have demonstrated that they are Not willing to bring accountability for the crimes of the Israeli occupation.
True justice will come from Palestinians themselves, writes Tara Alami
On 11 May 2022, beloved Jerusalemite Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was assassinated in Jenin by an Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) sniper, while covering direct the Israeli attack for the Al Jazira news.
Shireen, wearing a press bulletproof vest and a protective helmet, was in Jenin to report the most recent IOF raid when she was shot in the head, underneath her helmet. During her funeral processions, IOF attacked the pallbearers carrying her coffin and the Palestinian mourners honouring her life and martyrdom.
Following Shireen’s death, calls for accountability and justice flooded the internet.
Among those calls were demands for an investigation by Israeli courts, American courts (given that Shireen also carried American citizenship), the United Nations (UN), and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
According to so-called international law, killing journalists is illegal.
In 1997, UNESCO passed Resolution 29 titled ‘Protection of Journalists against Violence’. The UN continuously condemns the killing of journalists worldwide and advocates for state-sanctioned ‘justice’.
In 2015, Palestine joined as a member of the ICC, meaning that the ICC technically has legal jurisdiction over the region and is able to carry out judicial investigations and enact ‘accountability’.
But when has ‘international’ law ever protected the Palestinian right to a liberated life, or any liberation struggle of the Global South from colonialism and Western hegemony?
After the Second World War, the UN was established along with the definition of “war crimes” to seek accountability for the millions killed, dispossessed, and displaced during the Holocaust and, presumably, to ensure such an atrocity never happens again.
The Nuremberg Trials were concluded with the judgement and conviction of 161 individuals, including 37 who were sentenced to death.
Other Nazis were repatriated to the United States, employed at NASA or the CIA, or even returned to their jobs in the Western bloc of Europe within a few years.
Nazism is alive and well today, perhaps even more fine tuned and sophisticated than it was during Hitler’s era.
The international bodies positioned as the arbiters of justice and guardians of human rights, by design, fail to address the systemic material realities and injustices created by imperialism because they were created by and for Western powers protecting their vision of the world order.
The UN, ICC, and other international agencies installed by and for the Global North cannot deliver true accountability and justice for colonised peoples seeking liberation, because that entails dismantling their raison d’être, Western hegemony, once and for all.
The United States, in particular, invokes international law only when convenient. For example, it spearheaded the Nuremberg then hiring and rehabilitating Nazi officials, funded guerrilla hubs in Asia that educated, armed, and trained the “Islamic jihad” then launched the War on Terror, and continues to bankroll the Zionist project while concluding that the IOF was “likely responsible” for Shireen Abu Akleh’s murder.
When the ICC does contradict US interests, like when an investigation into American crimes in Afghanistan was authorised, US state actors deem the court an “unaccountable political institution, masquerading as a legal body.” But when the ICC issues an arrest warrant for Putin, however, the decision is “justified.”
At the UN, the US regularly uses its Security Council veto power to unilaterally block any attempt to recognise Palestinians’ mere human rights or hold Israel accountable for its human rights abuses.
Even if the UNSC were to suggest meaningful ‘justice’ and ‘accountability’ on behalf of Palestinians, the USA ensures the burial of these resolutions in an endless cycle of vetoes overriding majority votes, while continuing to fund the IOF and providing weapons they use to kill Shireen Abu Akleh and all Palestinian martyrs.
Shireen Abu Akleh is Not the only example.
Omar Abdulmajeed Assad, the 80-year-old Palestinian man who was killed by IOF during his arrest in 2022, was also an American citizen, but even with a US passport, they were both Palestinians whose existence posed a direct threat to the interests of the imperial core.
Even Rachel Corrie, a non-Palestinian who was killed by a bulldozer in 2003 for defending a Palestinian home from demolition by the IOF, has never seen accountability for her assassination.
Vague demands for accountability from liberal human rights organisations and imperialist states that maintain the ongoing Nakba only leave space for opportunistic gestures, like the US’s “inconclusive” investigation of Shireen Abu Akleh’s assassination or the IOF’s recent horrific ‘apology’.
Palestinians have known for years that justice for the occupation and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people cannot be delivered by Western bureaucracies or meaningless apologies.
When thinking of justice, the focus should instead be shifted to Palestinians on the ground resisting ongoing genocide on a daily basis, from prisoners detained in Israeli jails, to Gazans enduring and surviving an air, land, and sea blockade and brutal airstrikes, to the youth-led armed struggle.
Shireen Abu Akleh deserves accountability because she is a Palestinian martyr who was murdered on occupied Palestinian land as a result of Israeli state-sanctioned snipers, not because she happens to be an American citizen, or because Resolution 29 condemns the killing of journalists.
Like all Palestinian martyrs, Shireen Abu Akleh’s life was stolen by a US-funded settler-colonial ethnostate as she fought for the freedom of her people and land.
Real accountability entails liberation from Zionist settler-colonialism and genocide, not a so-called third-party ‘neutral’ investigation, a UN resolution, an NGO report, or an ICC indictment.
Justice can only be achieved by the Palestinian people, whose steadfast struggle for liberation has been ongoing for over 75 years.
Tara Alami is a Palestinian writer and organiser from occupied Jerusalem and occupied Yafa. She is based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal).
Follow her on Twitter: @taraxrh
Israel’s carceral system won’t defeat Palestinian resistance. Samar Saeed
Philip Clark
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Ludwig van Beethoven’s symphonies have influenced every generation of composers since they were written.
Riccardo Chailly talks to Philip Clark about the enduring power of the symphonies
Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer who, more than any other, changed music, the sound of music and what it is that composers do, wrote 9 symphonies that jolted music out of itself.
Life would never be the same again. The “classical” rationality of structure, harmony, form, melodic development and orchestration span into open-ended possibility.
And, nearly 200 years after his death, no one expects the pieces to settle down again any time soon.
This much we know; but how exactly did Beethoven’s symphonies shift the terrain so absolutely?
Riccardo Chailly’s convivial, knowing smile as we sit down to talk in the music room of his Milan home tells me that this is a man with answers.
There’s plenty to smile about: at 58, he’s about to release his first complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies, recorded over three seasons with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and they then go on tour with the cycle, taking in Leipzig, Vienna and Paris before concluding in London at the Barbican on November 3.
This is an ensemble that not only stakes a claim to being the world’s oldest, but which played the first complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies during the composer’s lifetime, and is proud to call Chailly its current Gewandhauskapellmeister.
And get this. Chailly is the orchestra’s 19th Gewandhauskapellmeister; its fifth was Mendelssohn and today’s artistic descendent of The Incomparable Felix is presently cracking jokes at the expense of my Ronnie Corbett-size digital recorder. “Inversamente proporzionale!” Chailly belly-laughs. “Does that tiny machine really have the capacity to contain every idea provoked by a discussion of Beethoven symphonies?”
Two hours later, the machine’s hanging on in there as we break for lunch. Retracing our steps back towards the dining room in Casa Chailly, he explains how walls were demolished to house floor-to-high ceiling shelving units now stuffed with the necessaries of his working life: music, composer critical studies, treatises about the art of conducting.
Open-plan rooms roll through each other like a Brooklyn railroad apartment and I catch glimpses of scores, encased witnesses to Chailly’s career: Verdi, Maderna, Mahler, Stravinsky, Varèse, Frank Zappa’s “The Yellow Shark”…all, unexpectedly, emphasising the centrality of Beethoven.
Because no matter how far back history takes you, or how deeply Edgard Varèse defies space-time continuums, beaming us up into a music that is forever the future, Beethoven is the tradition that tells us tradition must be protected from itself; that the most traditional thing about tradition is its radical soul.
Later, as I transcribe the interview tapes, I’m struck by the realisation that Chailly always substitutes “integrated” for my word “complete” when I’m describing his cycle. If this is a quirk of how Italian back-translates into English, the symbolism is still appropriate.
“My way of approaching Beethoven symphonies has always been to view them as a total work,” he explains, “which is not to say they all must be performed each time, but rather they are conceived as an opus magnum.”
How does giving the down-beat for the First Symphony’s Adagio molto introduction, while keeping the Ninth’s choral summation in mind, shape the idea of a “cycle” – an “integrated cycle” – rather than an anthology of nine self-contained performances?
“This gigantic ride, so long, so difficult, needs to be shaped logically; thinking about all the symphonies distributes that logic.”
Later we cut into how exactly Beethoven changed music and how vital the idea of “a cycle” was to him. But to set the scene I want to know about the concepts, obsessions, sonic contours of Chailly’s Beethoven.
Does the world needs another Beethoven cycle right now? With recent sets from Chailly’s erstwhile boss, Claudio Abbado, from Simon Rattle and the newly released Chambre Philharmonique cycle under Emmanuel Krivine – described by a former reviews editor of this magazine, James McCarthy, as containing a “mini revelation” inside each bar – some might reasonably conclude that we’re all Beethovened out.
Over a getting-to-know-you lunch, I tell Chailly how much I’ve been enjoying the soufflé lightness of Giulini’s Eroica, Fifth and Pastoral with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Giulini and the sound of the LAPO is an intriguing combination, Chailly thinks, but a radically different vision of Beethoven from his. He nearly drops his knife and fork when I mention my admiration for Bernstein’s Beethoven but accepts my point about the potency of Bernstein’s personal vision.
The vanguard, as Chailly sees it, starts with Karajan’s 1960s recordings and arrives in the 1990s at the twin peaks of David Zinman with the Zürich Tonhalle Orchestra and John Eliot Gardiner’s Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique.
Chailly’s view was informed by their spadework, and by two conceptual starting points: he decided to perform everything at precisely Beethoven’s metronome mark and to resist the current orthodoxy of performing from Jonathan Del Mar’s new Beethoven edition (which nevertheless Chailly finds “very beautiful, very interesting and certainly very revealing”) and return instead to the edition Peters published at the end of the 19th century.
“We know from later editions that Beethoven’s markings were often misunderstood,” Chailly tells me, “and this Peters Edition, which was the second one they printed, was regarded as the most faithful to his intentions. Articulation and dynamics are crucial in Beethoven and the markings are extremely detailed.”
Different staccato marks et al are clearly delineated? “Yes. That’s a very important distinction – between a normal staccato, notated as a dot, and staccatissimo, which is written like an arrowhead. And also this edition is rich in dynamics – the shapes of dynamics, sudden dynamics.”
Chailly recalls drooling over George Szell’s scores of the Beethoven symphonies when he was guest conductor with the Cleveland Orchestra, and seeing wisdom shine through the pages. “After studying his scores, I discovered how much the conductor needs to interfere with dynamics to achieve even more clarity within the text.”
Interfere with dynamics to achieve an internal balance on a modern orchestra? “Yes, but never by adding instruments; I don’t like this tradition of doubling the woodwind or brass. Having a relatively large string section in Leipzig, I need to work even harder on dynamics to balance the original shape of the wind and brass, which originally would have been heard against a much smaller string section. The power of the strings is a dominant element in the sensational personal sound of the Gewandhaus Orchestra; this way of dealing with dynamics was part of the shock with the orchestra.”
The other upset is, of course, Chailly’s daringly literal approach to tempo, which aims a dirty bomb at the face of mannered, polite, tailored Beethoven. “After the first rehearsal of the First Symphony, the orchestra didn’t know what to think, or where to put themselves, but then they understood the challenge – this is how it’s going to be for the next three seasons.
“But all I did was choose the tempo Beethoven wrote in the score! The finale of the Eighth is basically on the edge of playability at Beethoven’s tempo. To articulate those double triplets on the strings, we needed to train for special clarity.” Chailly attempts to sing the same passage, stumbles, laughs. Point made.
“The first movement, too, is magnificent to do all alla breve instead of in the usual 3.” Chailly’s bel canto voice tongue-lashes the Eighth’s opening phrase, ending with a surprise diminuendo where most conductors stress the final chord. His diminuendo, he says, asks: what’s next?
“The Andante of the First Symphony, at Beethoven’s tempo, radically changes the dimensions of the whole movement. It condenses the perfect shape of Beethoven’s sonata form, and instead of the traditional fast 3/8, it is all in 1, which gives it the character of a Baroque minuet.” And the dancing-through-your-bones finale of the Seventh? At Beethoven’s tempo?
“That’s actually a human tempo already. There are many notes but it is to be conducted all in 1. Actually, it’s often done much faster than is written.” The exception that proves the rule.
Velocity, tempo, speed, attack. Viscerally invigorating, intellectually stimulating, but in itself an interpretation? I wonder how Chailly’s tempo choices trickle into other musical parameters. If we’re talking about how music was never the same again after Beethoven, there’s a problem. Harmony has a dynamic function in Beethoven.
But, in life, Beethoven’s harmonies have become habitual, accepted, robbed of their capacity to crash the threshold. Music we love listening to. Music we don’t necessarily hear. Classics for pleasure. Could reconnecting Beethoven’s symphonies with Beethoven’s tempi reconnect us with Beethoven’s harmonic sting?
“The change of gear between harmonies is even more tangible at these tempi,” Chailly nods. “In the first movement of the Eighth, where the harmony changes all the time, the tempo – his tempo – shows the instability of the harmony. Compare this to Haydn or Mozart: in the moment of harmonic change you jump with surprise; but Beethoven exists in a constant state of change.”
Tonal instability is my pet fascination. How come Beethoven was the composer who changed music more than anybody since Papa Bach? Was it because harmonic development was no longer contained by structure, but rippled through to change the structure?
Fire finding its form, as William Blake put it, a direct historical line that led eventually to everything that happened in the wake of serialism, towards the spectral composition of Iancu Dumitrescu and Horațiu Rădulescu, where strategies are deployed to make instruments themselves unstable, to Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics (rhythm, harmony, melody given equality within the unfolding structure) and the self-termed “non-idiomatic” guitar improvisations of Derek Bailey?
That would be a nice story to tell but history has its history too. Ives and Tippett said plenty about Beethoven, but Schoenberg and Stravinsky, figures destined to power the motor of 20th-century revolution, had surprisingly little to say.
Stravinsky distrusted the Beethovenian spirit. John Cage heard emotional manipulation inside Beethoven’s music and spoke out against it given even half a chance. And composers who responded to Beethoven’s challenges via reconstituted Beethovenian forms were always doomed. Rationalising instability? What’s the point?
Chailly is well placed to discuss the contemporary resonance of Beethoven. His father was the composer Luciano Chailly, an intimate of Luigi Nono and Luciano Berio.
In 2004 Radio Netherlands issued a 13-CD box documenting Chailly’s 16 years as principle conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra: Bartók, Stravinsky, Berio, Maderna, Rihm, Peter Schat and Tristan Keuris are filed alongside performances of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Mahler and a headbanging Beethoven Symphony No 2 without fuss.
Chailly’s 1998 cycle of the complete Varèse outguns any rival. He plays new music like it’s already classic, classical music like it’s mint fresh. What does he think subsequent composers took from Beethoven’s harmonic instability? No hesitation: Robert Schumann is the first that comes to Chailly’s mind.
Palestinian camps in Lebanon, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and even in occupied Palestine: The frailest of existence since 1948
Posted on: May 29, 2023
Amjad Yaghi
May 16, 2023
Among the stories told, and are still being told, by those who remain from the Palestinian Nakba generation, is that they agreed to take residence in the Palestinian refugee camps established in five areas under the supervision of UNRWA, because they believed they were temporary and that they would eventually return to Palestine.
However, their hopes were shattered and the dream grew even more distant following the creation of Apartheid State of Israel. .
After 75 years of the Palestinian Nakba, the Palestinian refugee camps have become significant sites for Palestinians, as they played a crucial role on the political, social, and cultural levels, even in the struggle against Israeli occupation.
Over time, the number of refugees in these camps has increased, along with their repeated humanitarian suffering. They have also faced discrimination and Israeli aggression, including the cleansing that some camps have been subjected to due to regional political events.
Some refugee camps have become more like popular areas that play a social and even economic role in their regions, such as the Yarmouk camp in Syria before 2011, the Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip, the Aqabah camp in Jordan, and the Balata and al-Am’ari camps in the West Bank.
6 million Palestinian refugees
Around 800,000 Palestinian refugees left the historic Palestine in 1948, according to UNRWA. The numbers registered with the agency reached 6 million Palestinians in the diaspora in the four Levant countries, distributed in five administrative regions affiliated with UNRWA, and not in other regions outside it, noting that unmentioned numbers immigrated to European and American countries.
The refugees are distributed with 59% in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, as mentioned by the Palestinian WAFA News and Info Agency, and 17% in the West Bank and 24% in the Gaza Strip.
Approximately 29% of them live in 58 camps, distributed as follows: 10 camps in Jordan, 9 camps in Syria, 12 camps in Lebanon, 19 camps in the West Bank, and 8 camps in the Gaza Strip.
Due to overcrowded living conditions in the camps, additional camps have emerged and branched out as emergency camps, as a result of the renewed conflicts in the region.
Concerns about the future of Gaza’s camps
Despite the architectural development witnessed by Palestinian camps in the Gaza Strip and their vertical and horizontal expansion, they can be described more akin to “sardine cans” due to overcrowding and population congestion.
This is exacerbated by the Israeli blockade, which restricts movement and travel, with the exception of a single outlet that has recently been in regular operation; the Rafah crossing.
The situation is even worse in terms of infrastructure, humanitarian services, and even recreational spaces within the Palestinian camps.
Some camps do not even have parks due to urban expansion and limited space for public transportation.
Any available space has also been converted for other public uses, including areas for street vendors selling from carts. This fact is applicable to the majority of parks in the Gaza Strip.
The problem in Gaza is progressing with some differences compared to other Palestinian camps in the diaspora, due to the halt in the migration of camp residents to the city center.
The small size of the Gaza Strip compared to its population poses a risk. According to the data of the Ministry of Interior for the end of 2022, the population in the Gaza Strip exceeded 2.375 million people, including approximately 1.5 million registered refugees with UNRWA according to the latest figures from 2021. Thus, two-thirds of Gaza’s population are refugees.
In addition to the imminent danger surrounding the future of the camps due to predictions of a population explosion within a small area of no more than 360 square kilometers, the danger is further amplified by the absence of a political solution and the unceasing tension and conflict in the region.
This is particularly evident during Israeli aggressions and attacks launched against the Gaza Strip, where targets within the camps are bombarded, increasing the likelihood of casualties and damage to homes due to overcrowding.
This has occurred in previous instances, with the most recent being the bombing of the al-Shaout area in the Rafah camp in the southern Gaza Strip and the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip, resulting in dozens of casualties during August of last year 2022.
West Bank camps under occupation
In the West Bank, there are 19 camps designated for Palestinian refugees.
They are as follows; al-Am’ari, Jalazone, Dheisheh, al-Arroub, Fawwar, al-Faria, Balata, Beit Jibrin, Jenin, Deir ‘Ammar, Camp No. 1, Shu’fat, Tulkarm, Aida, Askar, Aqabat Jaber, Ein Al Sultan, Qalandiya, and Nur Shams refugee camps. UNRWA estimates that there are approximately 830,000 refugees residing in these camps. (Israel frequently do early morning attacks to kill round up Palestinians. Sharon totally destroyed the camp of Jenin and exacted hundred of casualties)
But the suffering of the camps in the West Bank is manifested in the continuous attempts by the Israeli army to plant tools and cameras with strict surveillance inside the camps, with ina strong concentration of checkpoints near them, especially regarding what is recently happening in the camps within the cities of Jenin and Nablus.
Jordanian camps and the “Jerash Gaza” camp
According to the latest statistics from the Department of Palestinian Affairs in the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, there are approximately 2,275,589 Palestinian refugees, accounting for 39.1% of the registered refugees in all areas of operation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
The number of refugees inside the 10 recognized camps is 396,006, representing 17.4% of the registered refugees in Jordan, while the number of refugees outside the ten camps is 1,879,583, accounting for 82% of the registered refugees in Jordan.
The debate continues about the percentage of Palestinians in Jordan, considering that a large number of them hold official Jordanian documents. Palestinian sources estimate their percentage to be over 60%, while Jordanian sources suggest that they are approximately 40%.
UNRWA established ten camps for Palestinian refugees in Jordan, namely the camps of Irbid, Baqa’a, Husn, Zarqa, Talbieh, Jabal el-Hussein, Souf, Amman, Marka, and finally, Jerash camp, known among Jordanians as “Jerash Gaza,” which was established in 1968 as the last camp in Jordan to host the largest number of Palestinian refugees in the region.
It was considered an emergency camp to accommodate tens of thousands of displaced Gazans who were forced to leave the Gaza Strip after the 1967 Naksa.
In recent years, some Palestinian camps have witnessed the migration of residents from the camps to the heart of Jordanian cities and villages, while many continue to suffer difficult humanitarian and economic conditions.
With the increase in population density, the poor infrastructure and public services keep worsening, and the camp witnessing the most suffering among the camps is the “Jerash Gaza” camp.
The “Jerash Gaza” camp is home to more than 24,000 refugees, according to the latest data from UNRWA in 2021.
Human rights organizations also mention that out of four buildings in the “Jerash Gaza” camp, three are uninhabitable due to structural problems. It is also considered one of the poorest areas in the Kingdom of Jordan.
From time to time, the House of Representatives activates the issue of “Gaza’s sons”, as is known in the council, but with no progress, as they are the poorest in Jordan due to the restrictions imposed on them in the field of work. They are not allowed to work in the public sector, and there is a long list of professions limited to Jordanian citizens, such as medicine, engineering, pharmacy, and others that require membership in professional associations and trade unions, which is restricted to the citizens of the country.
They face difficulties in various aspects of life, including education, health, social, and economic challenges. There are growing concerns about the collapse of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which operates the schools where their children study. This means that they will have to bear the costs of educating their children in compulsory elementary schools. Moreover, universities treat them as foreign nationals and charge them fees in US dollars.
Lebanon’s camps and discrimination
The camps in Lebanon are subjected to the most severe forms of discrimination in basic citizenship rights, especially in terms of employment discrimination and being deprived of more than 70 public jobs.
They are also prohibited from owning property outside the camps. Additionally, there is poor infrastructure, limited services, and difficulty accessing some camp facilities due to overcrowding.
According to the data from UNRWA in 2021, the number of Palestinian refugees in Lebanese camps, totaling 12 camps, reached approximately 480,000 refugees.
The largest concentration of refugees is in Ein el-Hilweh camp, along with the camps of Beddawi, Nahr al-Bared, El-Buss, Mieh Mieh, Bourj el-Barajneh, Rashidieh, Burj Shemali, Shatila, Dbayeh, Mar Elias, and Wavel camp.
More than 30,000 Palestinian refugees fled from Syrian camps and sought refuge in Palestinian camps in Lebanon, joining refugees residing there and sharing their escalating hardships and suffering. They transferred their records and sought assurances for the continuation of humanitarian aid in the camps.
Strategic solutions to the plight of Palestinian refugees in areas experiencing political conflicts in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria remain elusive. The focus remains on temporary solutions and demands for the continuity of humanitarian aid
90% of Palestinians within Syrian camps are extremely poor
According to the latest registration of refugee numbers in 2011, there were over 650,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria. However, as UNRWA clarifies, the available data reflects the most recent information the agency could access due to obstacles and challenges it faces.
During the Sixth Brussels Conference on “Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region”, the UNRWA Commissioner-General stated that the Palestinian community is among the most vulnerable refugee communities in the region. He emphasized that 90% of them live in poverty out of a total of 438,000 Palestinian refugees who remain in Syria out of an original 650,000.
They are located in 12 camps: Yarmouk, Dara’a, Latakia, Neirab, Jaramana, Hama, Homs, Khan Dannoun, Sbeineh, Ein el-Tal, Qabr Essit, and Mar Elias.
By the end of December 2022, the Action Group for the Palestinians of Syria – a human rights organization specialized in monitoring the conditions of Palestinian refugees in Syria and documenting the repercussions of the Syrian war – reported that around 130,000 Palestinians from Syrian camps had reached Europe, mostly through unofficial routes.
Approximately 31,000 Palestinian refugees had fled from Syria to Lebanon by October 2022, some attempting illegal migration routes, while others perished at sea, including the victims of the sunken Tartus boat.
Yarmouk camp is the largest camp that dominated the Palestinian scene in Syria following the outbreak of events in 2011. Figures indicate that it housed around 160,000 Palestinian refugees. It experienced a series of bombardments and clashes between parties to the Syrian conflict. At present, only thousands have returned to live in the camp after the Syrian regime allowed them to come back.
On the other hand, strategic solutions to the plight of Palestinian refugees in areas experiencing political conflicts in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria remain elusive.
Instead, the focus predominantly remains on temporary solutions, repeated humanitarian demands, the continuity of aid, and demands for the improvement of infrastructure.
There is a lack of consideration for the future and comprehensive solutions to address the issues of population expansion and urban planning, or the risk of spreading armed conflicts to these areas, leaving Palestinians to face a dark and uncertain future amidst the ongoing conflicts and turmoil in the region.
Adonis Diaries 