MAIREAD MAGUIRE, [in Ireland] [email]
Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire just wrote the piece “Israeli Military Assault on Gaza Not Defence but Murder of Unarmed Civilians.”
RICHARD FALK [email]
Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories, including Gaza and a professor of international law emeritus, Princeton University. This morning, he appeared with Raji Serani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, on Democracy Now! and said in response to a question on the Israeli attack on a media center in Gaza: “It is clear that any kind of deliberate attack on journalists is itself a war crime. … And it represents an attempt by Israel, I suppose, to avoid any kind of effort to tell the story of what is really happening … to tell the terrible ordeal the people of Gaza are being subjected to without the kind of protection international law should be affording them.”
Falk also stated that Hamas had proposed a long-term truce and Israel had assassinated the Hamas leader who was agreeing to the truce — adding that this has been virtually ignored by the media and totally ignored in President Obama’s rendition of events. See the New York Times oped “Israel’s Shortsighted Assassination” by Gershon Baskin, who negotiated for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was released by the just-assassinated Hamas leader Ahmed al-Jabari. Baskin notes: “On the morning that he was killed, Mr. Jabari received a draft proposal for an extended cease-fire with Israel, including mechanisms that would verify intentions and ensure compliance.”
JOE CATRON, [in Gaza] [email], @jncatron
A freelance writer, English teacher and activist currently living in Gaza, Catron is involved with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which advocates using people-driven economic pressure on Israel to assert rights for Palestinians.
MOHAMMED OMER, [email]
Available for a limited number of interviews, Omer is a reporter based in Gaza, Omer reports that Israel is continuing and perhaps escalating bombing of Gaza with F-16s. He reports from a hospital in Gaza that 95 have been killed and 850 injured, including many children. He also noted that Israel appears to be using a substance that “burns bodies of children, makes it difficult to identify them.” See after last major Israeli attack in 2009 the BBC report “UN Accuses Israel Over Phosphorus.”
Omer recently wrote the piece: “Did Israel Assassinate Hamas’ Chief Peace Negotiator?”
AMJAD SHAWA, [in Gaza] [email]
Shawa is coordinator of PNGO the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
ELIK ELHANAN, via Nurit Peled-Elhanan [email]
One of the co-founders of Combatants for Peace, Elhanan is a former paratrooper in the Israeli military. He said today: “This is an election trick by a prime minister [Netanyahu] whose entire ideology is being dismissed in Israel. It’s important to know that Israel killed the pragmatic man [Hamas official Ahmad Jabari] able to broker a truce and probably that’s why they did it.”
CINDY and CRAIG CORRIE [email]
Cindy and Craig Corrie returned a week ago from a trip to Gaza and Israel. They are the parents of Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in the Gaza Strip on March 16, 2003, while trying to prevent the demolition of the home of a Palestinian pharmacist, his wife and three young children.
