In my last post, I wrote that if the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit was not returned safely, an Israeli armed force would enter Gaza for the first time since last August's withdrawal. Well, as everyone is probably aware, Shalit has yet to be returned and Israeli troops have entered Gaza. The situation has only worsened. Ha'aretz reported that "roughtly two-thirds of Gaza's 1.3 million residents were left without electricity" after the Israeli army targeted the main power station. And now it appears that Eliyahu Pinchas Asheri, 18, the West Bank teenager who was kidnapped earlier this week by the Palestinian Resistance Committees has been found dead in Ramallah with a shot gun wound through his head. His funeral is going to be today in Jerusalem. For the sake of both sides, Israeli and Palestinian, we can only hope that Shalit's fate will be different.
In response to the raid and kidnappings, Israel has arrested most of Hamas' cabinet ministers. About 60 senior Hamas members are now in Israeli jails under the suspicion of being involved in terrorist activity.
That is a brief overview of what is going on. Nothing you can't read on an updated news website. What I can tell you though is that the streets of Jerusalem are still bustling and as busy as ever. Sure, everyone knows what's going on, but it hasn't had an effect on day to day life in Jerusalem. My boss was telling me yesterday how it was a ghost town between 2000 and 2004. Restaurants and stores that had been there "forever" had to close because there just wasn't anyone coming in. If anything, the Western Wall or Kotel, is now more crowded than ever with people praying for the safe return of Shalit. Things might even be somewhat normal in the more conflicted areas. Yesterday at the youth hostel, I was talking to a girl who had just visited Hebron that afternoon. While she had not been there before and apparently had not heard how dangerous it is supposed to be during the day, she still returned safely. Besides the occasional gunshots she heard in the background, she didn't report anything out of the ordinary.
Back at the office I got to see (or hear) the results of my first assistance with a story. I mentioned in my last post that I was researching the new, mostly unknown group "the Army of Islam" which was involved in Sunday's raid. One of my tasks was to locate some academics who could provide some background information on this group. An audio interview with one of the contacts I found, Dr. Munther Dajani, a political scientist at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, is now up on the site (www.themedialine.org). The interview was conducted by The Media Line's Arab Affairs correspondent Rachelle Kliger. After you get past the first minute where instead of answering the questions, he talks about how Israeli aggression results in these kind of extremist groups, the interview does provide some useful insight. Dr. Dajani says that it is unlikely that Al-Qaida and Hamas could ever cooperate because it like comparing "apples and oranges." Their ideologies are too different. Even if they share a common enemy in Israel, Hamas is a nationalist group who wants to liberate Palestine while Al-Qaida is a universal group who wants "to liberate the whole world." Al-Qaida might even view Hamas as being too moderate. All this new information is eye-opening for me. I never thought I'd learn the difference between one extremist group and another.
Other stories being covered here of note: Thursday's elections in Kuwait are the first time that women will be allowed to vote and run in parliamentary elections. There are 28 female candidates out of 250, which is amazing considering the women receive daily threats and they were only given the right to vote last May.
And as for me? I'm on the move. I'm finally leaving the youth hostel today and moving into the dorms. This means a longer commute, more privacy, more sleep and perhaps more concise posts.