Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Kites rise above the divisions in Gaza

Mohammed Omer, The Electronic Intifada, 16 June 2008

I thought of the suggestion of children playing today and found this online. Thoughts and images are a powerful thing. It reminded me of the art project where I had the children draw pictures of "What Peace Means to You" ... for Mahmoud in Gaza, it is flying his kite with his friend, Abdullah on the Egypt side of the wall. For the day they play and have fun trying to capture each others kites in the sky. 

Monday, June 16, 2008

KEY HISTORICAL EVENTS


KEY HISTORICAL EVENTS
A Palestinian artist paints a mural marking the anniversary of the Nakba in the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza strip, 15 May 2006. (Wesam Saleh/MaanImages)

The Death March from Lydda 1948



Israeli soldiers moved into Lydda on 11th July, 1948. 19 000 Palestinians lived in Lydda but its population had been swollen by refugees from Jaffa and from outlying villages to about 40 000.

Palestinians taken prisoner were executed in the Dahmash Mosque The people were forced to leave the town, usually without most of their belongings. Some who were slow to hand over valuables to the Israeli soldiers were killed.

This was during a very hot summer. Temperatures reached 40 degrees centigrade. The refugees were short of water. It was three days before they reached safety near Ramallah. By then at least 350 had died of thirst or exhaustion.

Leicestershire Holy Land Appeal

Palestinians fleeing the Nakba, 1948

Saturday, June 7, 2008

This blog has moved to our new site

This blog has moved to the Olympia-Rafah Mural Project's new site:

Olympia Rafah Mural Project Ideas

If you are a contributor to this blog, you should have received an e-mail with new login information. Please post to the new blog instead of here.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Al Awda... The Return



by Fayeq Oweis, Ph.D.

The Palestinian house key with 'Al-Awda' (the return)
written in Arabic calligraphy

Landscapes of Palestine

Here are some striking images that I found today...


Ancient Olive Tree.


http://www.macucc.org/emj/images/tree.jpg


Destroyed olive groves in Palestine.

Suba (Arabic: صوبا‎) was an Arab village west of Jerusalem that was depopulated and destroyed in 1948. The site of the village lies on the summit of a conical hill called Tel Tzuba (Hebrew: תל צובה‎), or Jabal Suba, rising 769 metres above sea level, and it was built on the ruins of a Crusader castle.


The village square, which was based on Belmont Castle's courtyard, with surviving medieval structures adapted and rebuilt as domestic buildings and a mosque.