Like the state of Israel, Akram al-Shamali and Moshe Feist both turn 60 this year. But that’s about where the similarities end. For Feist, an Israeli, the anniversary is a chance to celebrate the Jewish state’s hard-fought achievements and swap stories of survival and patriotism over a glass of local wine.
Israel has turned away more sick Palestinians from Gaza seeking treatment since Hamas seized control of the enclave and several have died each month unnecessarily. The World Health Organisation said Israel denied entry permits to 18,5% of patients seeking to leave the Gaza Strip in 2007 versus 10% in 2006.
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/ 12 February 2008
Israeli leaders vowed on Monday to step up their war against Hamas and predicted the Islamists’ grip on the Gaza Strip would end within months. Two days after a rocket wounded an Israeli child in a country grown used to barrages that do little damage, Defence Minister Ehud Barak pledged to step up the military campaign.
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/ 4 December 2007
Israel said on Tuesday it believed that Iran had restarted its atomic-weapons programme and that a United States-backed campaign to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions must continue despite a US report it had halted the work. ”It is vital to pursue efforts to prevent Iran from developing a capability like this,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters.
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/ 21 November 2007
Israeli Yfat Alon and Palestinian Radi Abu Eisha both view themselves as victims of hatred. And both scoff at talk of peace. Alon’s mother and niece were killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber. Abu Eisha watched his sick brother die when an ambulance was blocked by Israeli soldiers running just the sort of security controls Alon says are vital to prevent more attackers reaching Israel.
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/ 16 November 2007
One posed for a photo as she scrubbed a Palestinian corpse. Another stripped a man to his underwear and then beat him. A third helped cover up the abuse of a young boy. The six Israeli women who feature in the documentary To See If I’m Smiling each wrestle with memories of their compulsory military service that they would rather erase.
With a skullcap bearing the Star of David and a fervent belief that God gave the Holy Land to the Jews, Paul McCaleb could be mistaken for a Jewish settler. The 73-year-old from Tennessee is actually a born-again Christian, part of a growing group of devout Protestants, who are supporting Israel with their votes and their wallets.
As an Anglican row over gay clergy deepens, growing numbers of conservative American priests are abandoning the liberal United States church and pledging allegiance to traditionalist African bishops instead. Africans, who take a tough line on homosexuality, are keen to recruit the dissident priests as bishops under their own authority.
The South African government plans to build a new -million submarine cable around the west of Africa to boost broadband capacity and cut Internet tariffs in the continent, it said on Tuesday. South Africa’s state-owned telecom infrastructure company Infraco said it would split the cable into two parts with one linking South Africa to Brazil and one to London.
The first time bank executive Lee Meyer strayed into South Africa’s rough Alexandra township, he spent a nervous half hour trying to get out without being attacked by local gangsters. Several years later, apartheid is over, Alexandra is safer, and Meyer is back.