Thursday, February 06, 2014

Thoughts before breakfast

All through last evening’s merciless wind and rain I was thinking about someone I love who had to work outside in it.

And under the duvet this morning at 5.50 after a long night of annoying dreams, I was wondering how my parents and grandparents lived through the World Wars. How do people manage to live through gruelling conditions of any kind – chronic bad health, crushing home lives, poverty, insecurity – and do it without complaint?

Then I sat up and found some inspirational thoughts on the net, drew the blinds and saw a bright sky with a pink streak in it and heard the birds.

Then I turned back to the net and found this report: that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has stopped giving tents to Palestinians when the Israelis demolish their homes.

The ICRC spokesperson said:

“…we will not be able to distribute shelter materials such as tents to people affected by house demolitions in the Jordan Valley and that is because we see a pattern of obstacles and confiscations since early 2013 of these tents and materials.”

ICRC had responded to 16 incidents of home demolitions involving some 70 households since the beginning of 2013, and the Israeli authorities had confiscated or destroyed the emergency housing materials of more than 30 of those households. This affected about 200 people. 

House demolition, Al-Mayta, Jordan Valley, 20.01.2013

picture credit – © Keren Major/ Active Stills

This is just one reason I boycott Israel.

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