Dear friends--
Another big week for Gaza and the rest of Far-West Asia... and also here in my hometown, Washington DC...
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In Gaza, since I last wrote there have now been two rounds of captive exchanges, as per the agreement that was finally reached January 15. In the first exchange, last Sunday, three Israeli women were exchanged for (I think) 150 Palestinian women and minors held in Israel's notorious prisons. In the exchange just completed today, four Israeli women soldiers were exchanged for 200 Palestinian captives, some of whom may now be deported while the rest get to return to their homes.
The image above is of the handover of the Israeli women soldiers to the Red Cross, at a ceremony deep inside Gaza.
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During the 160 hours since the ceasefire went into effect, it has become ever more clear that the multi-layered, anti-occupation, anti-colonial resistance movement in Gaza has survived the heinous violence that Israel-- with the active support of the US government and other "Western" allies-- has visited on the enclave's people for 15 very lengthy months.
The resistance movement has survived at the crucial civil/popular society level, as well as the military level.
During the two hostage-handover ceremonies we've seen in Gaza so far, the Hamas fighters organizing the handovers have shown a strong presence, significant discipline, sturdy local support-- and some great stage-management skills. Here's a drone-view photo of today's handover that Hamas's Military Information shared. (Click to enlarge so you can see more details.)
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The January 15 agreement has brought significant relief to Gaza's population, including:
- an end to Israeli military assaults across much, but not yet all, of the Strip, and withdrawal of Israel's ground troops from much, but not yet all, of the Strip;
- the arrival of 600-plus truck/day of the basic humanitarian goods that Gaza's genocide survivors now so desperately need;
- the return of a substantial degree of civil order to many locations where previously the Israelis allowed armed gangs to rampage;
- some degree of freedom of movement across the enclave; and
- the release of some of the many Gaza Palestinians-- as well as Palestinians from the West Bank-- whom the Israeli occupation forces have taken captive over the years.
However, the Gazans' sense of relief is seriously tempered as, after the silencing of most of Israel's previously omnipresent guns and quadcopters, people have been able to start to learn more about see the terrifying extent of the losses the Israeli-US assault has visited on them.
![]() Regarding the human losses, the Gaza-Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha shared this heart-wrenching assessment, at right. (Click to enlarge.)
Regarding losses of physical infrastructure, the UN's satellite agency UNOSAT recently released an assessment (PDF) from December in which they estimated that more than 50 million metric tonnes of rubble would have to be removed from Gaza. Check the PDF for a map and many other details.
![]() ... That rubble was previously, of course, the homes, schools, shops, offices, markets, hospitals, and other facilities that Gaza's people had painstakingly built up, and that had anchored their families' lives for decades.
But despite all these losses, most aspects of their society remain intact, rooted in a sense of resistance-based social solidarity whose strength would put many other countries' societies to shame.
![]() The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, grew out of and has always remained rooted in that strong, civil-society-based commitment to resistance. If you have not yet read the little primer, Understanding Hamas And Why That Matters, that Just World Ed and our friends at OR Books published last October, then now would be an excellent time to do so!
![]() (And we just learned that tomorrow, Sunday, the launch event that my co-author Rami G. Khouri and I held for the book in October will be airing tomorrow, Sunday, on C-Span's Book TV channel-- at 8:45am, 11:45am, 8:45pm, 11:45pm, all times Eastern US. So catch it there if you can!)
Our recent ceasefire-focused PalCast
![]() My dear, Dublin-based colleague Tony Groves and I had the pleasure last Tuesday of turning the tables on our friend the PalCast host Dr. Yousef Aljamal so we could get his views and assessments on the meaning of the ceasefire for Gaza's genocide survivors. (Yousef also had a lovely piece of personal news to share. Big congrats to you, Yousef!)
But most of our convo was very somber. We discussed the devastating human impact of the ceasefire and highlighted the immense challenges of rebuilding. Aid had just begun to enter Gaza as we walked, but as Yousef told us the demand for basic necessities remains overwhelming. Paramedics were still uncovering victims, and families faced difficulties identifying loved ones, underscoring the urgent need for DNA testing facilities...
You can listen to this whole episode on Apple, Spotify, or other major platforms. Share it with your friends!
... and at DC's Palestine Center
![]() On Thursday I was psyched to be part of the panel that the new head of DC's Palestine Center, Fadi Kafeety, organized that also included Gaza Soup Kitchen director Hani Almadhoun and the renowned investigative reporter and author Max Blumenthal.
Hani talked first, sharing a deeply moving account of the trials that his family had faced in Northern Gaza through the course of the genocide. Those trials included the Israelis' killing of one of his brothers along with his entire family... and then the more recent assassination of his brother the renowned "Chef Mahmoud", who had run the Gaza Soup Kitchen for several months.
Then Max talked, mainly about the reproach he had voiced in the State Department the week before, over Gaza, to fellow Jewish American Anthony Blinken... and his (Max's) subsequent removal from that briefing room.
Then I talked a little about the US-wide and global implications of-- and the possible prospects for-- the ceasefire agreement.
You can watch this whole conversation here.
Eyes on Lebanon
![]() So tomorrow is indeed the date by which-- under the ceasefire agreement concluded at the end of November-- the Israeli military is supposed to have removed all of its units from Lebanon... But guess what. Yesterday, PM Netanyahu's office released a statement arguing that the Lebanese side had "not yet fully enforced" its side of the agreement, which would involve ensuring the removal of all Hizbullah fighting units from the south and their replacement by Lebanese Army units. And therefor, the PM's statement continued, the Israeli units' withdrawal would continue "gradually", and "under full cooperation with the United States.”
Let us see what happens. Will Pres. Trump be as ready to kowtow to Israel's demands on this matter as readily as Pres. Biden kowtowed to Israel on nearly every single issue of possible disagreement between them?
Which way Trump will decide on this matter could be an informative augur for how strongly he and his team will continue to insist that Israel complies with the many commitments still required of it under the very complex, remaining 17 weeks of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
There have been some intriguing, and potentially hopeful, tidbits coming out of Trumpworld. First of all, it was very clearly ONLY the intervention of Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff that forced Netanyahu to (finally!) sign off, on January 15, on the ceasefire+hostage deal that the Biden team had relegated completely to a (highly complicit) back burner throughout the preceding 13 months.
And more recently, Ryan Grim had this terrific piece over at DropSite News, in which he detailed how many of the hawkish neocons who had earlier clustered round Trump have now been barred from playing any role at all. Well worth a read.
...and on Jenin
Israel's ultra-violent military may have been forced to accede (somewhat) to ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. So instead, they have been focusing their bloodlust on the people of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, and its refugee camp. Yesterday, the UN Human Rights Council released this statement, expressing the UNHRC's deep concern about Israel's unnecessary or disproportionate use of force in Jenin, including "multiple airstrikes and apparently random shooting at unarmed residents attempting to flee or find safety."
The UNHRC statement reminded the world community that Israel, as the occupying power in the West Bank (as in Gaza), "has the responsibility to protect the population in the territory it occupies."
It expressed concern at "repeated comments from some Israeli officials about plans to expand settlements further still," recalling that "the transfer by Israel of its own civilian population into territories it occupies also amounts to a war crime."
For his part, Israeli PM Netanyahu seems set on continuing the "Gazafication" of Jenin and the rest of the West Bank. On Tuesday, Trump's nominee for envoy to the UN Elise Stefanik reiterated her belief that by Biblical edict, the whole of the West Bank rightly belongs to Israel.
Will Trump throw his full weight behind this position? It is still hard to tell.
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Just World Ed board members making waves
I am so delighted to share my service to Just World Ed with such an inspiring galaxy of fellow board members... And many of them-- in addition to Rami Khouri and me-- have been doing sterling work on matters related to West Asia in recent weeks:
** Alice Rothchild, MD has been working hard with Jewish Voiuce for Peace's Health Advisory Council, and doing a lot to help pull together the weekly updates they publish for health professional worldwide.
** Richard Falk has been continuing to publish regularly on his blog, "Global Justice in the 21st Century." TThis month so far, he has published three pieces there:
** Rick Sterling has also published some important and timely articles this month:
- On Jan. 13, he published this informative interview about developments in Syria with Peter Ford, who was formerly Britain's ambassador to Bahrain, then Syria, and also Deputy Commissioner-General of UNRWA. (Peter Ford, like Richard Falk, had been an important participant in the "Commonsense on Syria" project that JWE presented nearly five years ago... I think we need to dig some of those archives out again...)
- On Jan. 20, Rick published an interview with an anonymous Damascus resident, titled "People in Syria Are Scared."
** Nora Barrows-Friedman has been a key part of the amazing team at Electronic Intifada that's been presenting a super-informative livestream every week since October 8, 2023. In addition, this week she finally released a very moving compilation of the audio interviews she conducted with our great friend and colleague Refaat Alareer at various points from 2014 until shortly before the Israelis assassinated him in December 2023.
-- Yesterday, Nora also published this article on EI: "Israel's genocidal war orphaned 40,000 children."
Huge appreciation to all these amazing colleagues!!
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More great news from Just World Books
![]() I hope you caught the news I shared last week about our imminent release of Ahmed Masoud's nail-biting, Gaza-set thriller Vanished: The Mysterious Disappearance of Mustafa Ouda, which Just World Books will be (re-)issuing March 25!
I should have made clear when I announced that, that JWB will initially be releasing this title within the North American market only.
When I go to the London Book Fair in March, I will be seeking publishers based East of the Atlantic who want to buy non-North American, English-language rights to this title or to (almost) any of the wildly popular books by Gaza-Palestinian and other anti-Zionist authors that JWB has been proud to publish over the past 14 years.
These include iconic titles like these: (Click on any image to get more info about it.)
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So please, friends, if you know of any publisher East of the Atlantic who might be interested in buying co-publication rights to any of our titles-- you can see the whole list here-- could you please either contact me yourself or have those publishers contact me!
![]() But the one JWB title for which I will NOT be seeking an East-of-Atlantic publisher is Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt's magisterial (and achingly poignant) ethnographic cookbook The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey. That's because this week I finally nailed down an agreement with Saqi Books of London under which they will have the exclusive right to distribute their own version of this work, in English, in all world markets except North America.
Hurrah! I know interest in The Gaza Kitchen has been super-high in the UK, in Europe, in the "Middle East", and elsewhere ever since we published its first edition 12 years ago. And now, our colleagues at Saqi will be well able to meet this demand! I think they're planning to release their version of the book this Summer or Fall.
It turns out the global market for English-language books is much more severely segmented by geography than many of us had earlier hoped. Now, the Gaza Kitchen will be effortlessly winging its way across the Atlantic, and also to Australia and elsewhere. Let's hope that many of our other timely titles can soon do the same!
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Two charitable appeals for Gaza
Finally, now that considerably greater quantities of sorely needed goods are finding their way into Gaza, I feel more comfortable than I was earlier, with recommending charities to which people can donate. (Earlier, when goods were so tightly limited, donations of money would all too often only exacerbate the ruinous inflation that plagued all of Gaza's people.)
So here are my two recommendations:
![]() ** The "Gaza Emergency response" appeal from the American Friends Service Committee.
AFSC has been on-the-ground in Gaza continuously since 1948, when for around a year it was the ONLY international organization providing releif services to the refugees whom the Zionist/Israeli fighters were ethnically cleansing from their homes and farms during the Nakba.
Today, our super friend and PalCast host Dr. Yousef Aljamal is also a staffer with AFSC's Gaza Program. All the more reason to support it!
![]() ** The Life for Gaza 2 campaign being run by the Gaza Municipality.
Last September we featured on the Palcast the Gaza-based engineer Asem Alnabih, who's the head of the Gaza Municipality's Media Relations department. He spoke very movingly indeed about the multiple, massive challenges the municipality faces, just to deliver very basic services to the people of this once-glorious city and its surrounding area.
I do hope you'll consider their very grassroots fundraiser. (This is being run out of Malaysia, so you will soon learn the exchange rate between the Malaysian rigngit and your local currency...)
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Well that's it for today. So much going on! So many completely mixed-up (and often contradictory) emotions. But the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and global peace and justice still continues. As many people have said over the past few days: Getting this ceasefire in Gaza is only the beginning of a long road ahead...
You stay well--
~ Helena
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