Palestine

Everyone is talking about Palestine. Well perhaps not enough people but at least some journalists on the BBC and Aljazeera and concerned citizens in campaign groups like the Palestine Solidarity Campaign(PSC), Stop the War, Respect, Avaaz. Friends are emailing other friends asking for support and inviting participation at demonstrations like the one in Sheffield today or the ones in London tomorrow, Thursday and Saturday.

Blogs
Are there many blogs being written from Gaza? There’s the one written by the Free Gaza Movement and it talks about quite a few others:

"News from Internationals in Gaza
There are several international human rights observers from the Free Gaza Movement and other groups currently in Gaza. See, for example, Vittorio Arrigoni's quote of the week below and his Italian blog at http://guerrillaradio.iobloggo.com, Sharon's blog at http://talestotell.wordpress.com and Eva's at http://ingaza.wordpress.com. Video interviews with the prolific journalist Ewa Jasiewicz, Jenny Linnel, Fida Qishta and more can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/lowvoicesloud. Also visit the new blogs http://gaza08.blogspot.com and http://www.savegazanow.blogspot.com. Since an air raid by the Israeli Air Force led to the injury of one and the death of another Palestinian doctor on December 31th and five more Palestinian medics on January 4, International Solidarity Movement and Free Gaza Movement volunteers will be accompanying medical teams throughout the Gaza Strip. In an effort to document the war crimes being committed by the Israeli military operation in Gaza, the internationals will be joining Gazan medical teams in shifts, both governmental and NGO hospitals. Volunteers expressed their concerns about the violation of Articles 19 and 21 of the Geneva Convention, which state that medical facilities and vehicles are to be protected from warfare. See http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/01/human-rights-activists-to-accompany-medical-teams-in-gaza/"


Photos and Videos
How else can you find out what is happening there? Any heard of the Ramattan News Agency? It says it is “ an independent news agency in the Middle East offering full service support to TV stations.” and that it has “offices in Gaza, Ramallah, Cairo, Jerusalem, San'aa, Kuwait, Darfor and Al-Khartoum.”

Where else do you look for information? On Flickr - but be warned – keep a hand on your mouse ready to hit the stop button! You can only take so much of that! You Tube? Well IDF - The Israeli Defense Force has launched its own YouTube channel to cover the current conflict in Gaza. You can also see videos about Gaza put up by all sorts of people. What about Social networking sites? How useful are they to finds out about what is happening? Anyone had a look? Indymedia have lots of photos of Saturday’s demonstration in Sheffield. Then of course there's wikipedia. It has articles on Palestinian Territories and the Gaza Strip.