Chris Mcgreal
Guest Author
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/ 11 October 2004

‘If they can get here, it’s safe’

Islam Dwidar’s classmates were still taking in her shocking death — the teacher weeping outside before facing the girls, her closest friend recounting how they walked to school together each day — when the news arrived about Tahreer Abu el Jidyan. The two 15-year-old pupils at Jabaliya’s school were both shot in the head by Israeli soldiers inside their homes just a few blocks and several hours apart.

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/ 1 October 2004

Children killed in Gaza Strip battles

The Gaza strip was bracing for a fresh Israeli military assault after a Hamas rocket attack on an Israeli town on Wednesday killed two children, one an infant. Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to respond ”with severity” to the attack on the town of Sderot, in which another 20 people were wounded. Late on Wednesday evening missiles ploughed into the Jabaliya refugee camp, killing two Palestinians.

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/ 10 August 2004

Working for Israel

If Abdul Rajoub ever doubts his fate should he be discovered on one of his secret night-time visits to his children, there is the videotape of his brother’s last few hours to remind him. ”They cut off his fingers one by one,” Rajoub said. After the killing of two alleged Palestinian collaborators last week, one informant speaks out about his motives and what his future may hold.

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/ 30 July 2004

Israel expands outposts

Months after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his plan to pull Jewish settlers out of Gaza, portraying it as a sacrifice for peace, the government is grabbing more land for West Bank settlements. Israeli peace groups and Palestinian officials say thousands of homes are under construction in the main settlements, in addition to an expansion of Jewish outposts, illegal under Israeli law.

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/ 24 May 2004

Snipers taking out children

The tiny hole buried under Asma Mughayar’s thick black hair, just above her right ear, is an illusion, according to the Israeli army. So is her family’s insistance that Asma (16) and her younger brother Ahmed, were both shot through the head by an Israeli soldier. As the carnage in Rafah escalates, bullet wounds belie the official Israeli line on killings of young teenagers.

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/ 14 May 2004

Shades of Lebanon

As more Israeli soldiers die in Gaza and Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu suggest cutting off the water and electricity supply to Gaza and severely limiting the movement of Palestinians, analysts are warning against Israel’s growing entanglement in the area.

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/ 29 March 2004

Rwanda, 10 years on

”I saw my wife, who was still alive. They had cut off her legs and arms and left her to bleed to death. I never saw my children again. I don’t know how they died.” In 1994, about 800 000 people were massacred in Rwanda. It was one of the bloodiest genocides Africa has ever seen. Ten years later, Guardian correspondent Chris McGreal returns to to talk to survivors — and killers living among them.

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/ 23 January 2004

Sharon sinks deeper

For months Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s bitterest opponents have gleefully speculated on the nature of his downfall. Would he be toppled by the ”Greek island affair” allegedly involving millions of dollars in bribes and plans to build an exotic casino on a tiny island in the Aegean Sea?

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/ 2 December 2003

Return of anti-semitism in Europe

Sixty years after the Holocaust, European Jews and Israelis are increasingly wondering if Europe is being sucked into the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. ”Anti-semitism has become politically correct in Europe,”’ said Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident and a minister in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government.