Disabled Gaza baby lives in Israel hospital

Disabled Gaza baby lives in Israel hospital

By DIAA HADID | Associated Press – 23 hrs ago


RAMAT GAN, Israel (AP) — In his short life, Palestinian toddler Mohammed al-Farra has known just one home: the yellow-painted children's ward in Israel's Tel Hashomer hospital.

Born in Gaza with a rare genetic disease, Mohammed's hands and feet were amputated because of complications from his condition, and the 3 ½-year-old carts about in a tiny red wheelchair. His parents abandoned him, and the Palestinian government won't pay for his care, so he lives at the hospital with his grandfather.

"There's no care for this child in Gaza, there's no home in Gaza where he can live," said the grandfather, Hamouda al-Farra.

"He can't open anything by himself, he can't eat or take down his pants. His life is zero without help," he said at the Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, part of the Tel Hashomer complex in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan.

Mohammed's plight is an extreme example of the harsh treatment some families mete to the disabled, particularly in the more tribal-dominated corners of the Gaza Strip, even as Palestinians make strides in combatting such attitudes.

It also demonstrates a costly legacy of Gaza's strongly patriarchal culture that prods women into first-cousin marriages and allows polygamy, while rendering mothers powerless over their children's fate.

Mohammed was rushed to Israel as a newborn for emergency treatment. His genetic disorder left him with a weakened immune system and crippled his bowels, doctors say, and an infection destroyed his hands and feet, requiring them to be amputated.

In the midst of his treatment, his mother abandoned Mohammed because her husband, ashamed of their son, threatened to take a second wife if she didn't leave the baby and return to their home in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, al-Farra said. In Gaza, polygamy is permitted but isn't common. But it's a powerful threat to women fearful of competing against newer wives.

Now Mohammed spends his days undergoing treatment and learning how to use prosthetic limbs.

His 55-year-old grandfather cares for him. Mohammed's Israeli doctors, who've grown attached to the boy, fundraise to cover his bills, allowing him and his grandfather to live in the sunny pediatric ward.

But it's not clear how long he'll stay in the hospital, or where he'll go when his treatment is complete. As a Palestinian, Mohammed is not eligible for permanent Israeli residency. Yet his family will not take the child back, the grandfather said. His parents, contacted by The Associated Press, refused to comment.

As his grandfather spoke, Mohammed used his knees and elbows to scamper up and down a nearby stairwell, his knees and elbows blackened and scarred from constant pressure. He used his arms to hold a green bottle he found in a stroller. His prosthetic legs with painted-on shoes were strewn nearby.

He crawled toward his grandfather's lap. "Baba!" he shouted, Arabic for "daddy." ''Ana ayef," he said — a mix of Arabic and Hebrew for "I'm tired."

Dr. Raz Somech, the senior physician in the Tel Hashomer pediatric immunology department, attributes Mohammed's genetic disorder to the several generations of cousin marriages in his family — including his parents.

In deeply patriarchal parts of Gaza — not in all the territory — men believe they have "first rights" to wed their female cousins, even above the women's own wishes. Parents approve the partnerships because it strengthens family bonds and ensures inheritances don't leave the tribe.

Repeated generations of cousin marriages complicate blood ties. It's not clear what affect that has had on disability rates in Gaza; but Somech said a third of patients in his department are Palestinians and most have genetic diseases that were the result of close-relation marriages.

Further worsening the situation, disabled children are often stigmatized.

Some families hide the children, fearing they won't be able to marry off their able-bodied children if the community knows of their less-abled siblings. And they are seen as burdens in the impoverished territory.

Some 183,600 Gaza residents — or 10.8 percent of the 1.7 million Gazans — suffer some kind of disability that affects their mental health, eyesight, hearing or mobility. Some 40,800 people suffer severe disability, the Palestinian bureau of statistics reported in 2011.

According to the bureau, two thirds of young disabled Gazans are illiterate and some 40 percent were never sent to school, suggesting either their parents kept them home or did not have the means to educate them — a likely scenario in the territory, where about two-thirds of the population live under the poverty line. Over 90 percent of the disabled are unemployed, the bureau said.

Yet attitudes have been changing in Gaza.

Activist Eid Shaboura said Mohammed's case is "extreme."

"There's been a lot of progress. It's changing now, but of course, not to the level we want."

There are greater efforts, by about 10 aid groups in Gaza, to increase opportunities for the disabled. Hearing-impaired Palestinians make boutique products in a Gaza center, "Atfaluna," Arabic for "Our Children." This year they opened a restaurant run by the hearing-impaired, further raising their visibility.

Gaza's Hamas rulers have also pushed the issue in recent years. Their matchmakers have helped marry off sight-impaired single men with brides and cover wedding costs. Wheelchair-bound Palestinian fighters wounded in battle are honored in military parades.

The hospital that is Mohammed's home is a rare meeting ground for Israelis and Palestinians. With Gaza's medical system often overwhelmed, patients often receive permits to receive treatment inIsrael.

A generation ago, thousands of Palestinians, including Mohammed's grandfather, worked in Israel. But Israel began restricting Palestinian movement over years of flaring violence, particularly since the militant group Hamas seized power of the coastal territory in 2007.

On a recent day at the children's hospital, patients and medics chatted in Hebrew and Arabic. Women in Muslim headscarves strolled in a corridor. An Orthodox Jewish woman affectionately patted Mohammed on his head. She nodded kindly at al-Farra.

Doctors' fundraising has covered Mohammed's years of treatment, Somech said. One donor provided $28,000 for Mohammed's prosthetics.

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is supposed to fund transfers to Israeli hospitals. But it stopped covering Mohammed's bills six months after he arrived, Somech said. Palestinian health official Fathi al-Hajj said there was no record of the case.

There has been a growing number of cases where the Palestinian Authority stopped paying for patients because of its budgetary problems, Mor Efrat of rights group Physicians for Human Rights said.

Al-Farra said he stepped in to care for Mohammed to save his daughter's marriage. He sleeps beside Mohammed and ensures he's clean and fed.

"Taking care of this child is a good deed," he said.

But after years of caring for Mohammed, his grandfather said he wants to go home. He wished he could find a foster home or caregiver for Mohammed.

"He needs many things in his life," al-Farra said, absentmindedly massaging Mohammed's arm stump as the toddler rested on his lap. "He needs a home."

___

With reporting by Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza. Follow Hadid at http://www. twitter.com/diaahadid

On the net:

http://www.atfaluna.net

http://eng.sheba.co.il/Sheba_Hospitals/The_Edmond_and_Lily_Safra_Childrens_Hospital

Hezbollah Denies Drone Sent Over Israel

Hezbollah Denies Drone Sent Over Israel

By BY DIAA HADID 04/25/13 05:11 PM ET EDT

JERUSALEM — Israel shot down a drone Thursday as it approached its northern coast from neighboring Lebanon, raising suspicions that the Hezbollah militant group was behind the infiltration attempt.

Hezbollah denied involvement, but the incident was likely to heighten Israeli concerns that the Shiite militant group is trying to take advantage of the unrest in neighboring Syria to strengthen its capabilities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in a helicopter in northern Israel at the time of the incident, said he viewed it with "utmost gravity."

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the unmanned aircraft was detected as it was flying over Lebanon and tracked as it approached Israeli airspace.

He said the military waited for the aircraft to enter Israeli airspace, confirmed it was "enemy," and then an F-16 warplane shot it down, smashing its wreckage into the sea about five miles (eight kilometers) off the northern port of Haifa. Lerner said Israeli naval forces were searching for the remains of the aircraft.

He said it still was not clear who sent the drone, noting it flew over Lebanese airspace, but that it could have originated from somewhere else.

Other military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk to the media, said they believed it was an Iranian-manufactured aircraft sent by Hezbollah. The Lebanese group sent a drone into Israeli airspace last October that Israel also shot down.

Officials said Netanyahu was informed of the unfolding incident as he was flying north for a cultural event with members of the country's Druse minority. They said his helicopter briefly landed while the drone was intercepted then continued on its way.

"On my way here in the helicopter, I was told that there is an infiltration attempt of a drone inside the skies of Israel," Netanyahu said in the northern Arab-Israeli town of Daliyat al-Karmel. "We will continue to do everything necessary to safeguard the security of Israel's citizens."

Despite the denial, the incident was likely to raise already heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, a bitter enemy that battled Israel to a stalemate during a monthlong war in 2006.

A senior Lebanese security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said Lebanon had no information on Thursday's incident.

When Israeli military shot down a Hezbollah drone on Oct. 6, it took days for Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah to confirm it. He warned in a speech that it wouldn't be the last operation by the group. He said the sophisticated aircraft was made in Iran and assembled by Hezbollah.

Netanyahu repeatedly has warned that Hezbollah might try to take advantage of the instability in neighboring Syria, a key Hezbollah ally, to obtain what he calls game-changing weapons.

Israel has all but confirmed that it carried out an airstrike in Syria earlier this year that destroyed a shipment of sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles bound for Hezbollah.

Israel's military has also stepped up its air surveillance over Lebanon. On Thursday morning, Israeli warplanes flew over the Christian town of Jezzine and the highlands of the Iqlim al-Tuffah province, a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon, the country's state-run National News Agency reported.

The Lebanese army also reported Israeli jets violated Lebanese airspace on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Some analysts said Hezbollah might be trying to divert attention from its involvement in the increasingly sectarian Syrian civil war. The Shiite militants have openly sided with the regime of Bashar Assad in its battle against mostly Sunni rebels.

Jonathan Spyer, senior research fellow at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center near Tel Aviv, said Hezbollah was facing discontent among its Shiite base in Lebanon, and more broadly among other Arabs for its participation in the Syrian conflict.

He said the group was likely trying to show that its real enemy was the Jewish state, in an effort to shore up support.

Spyer said sending a drone appeared to be a "fairly calibrated provocation," intended to be low key enough not to provoke an Israeli military response in Lebanon.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we see more of these kinds of incidents in the weeks and months ahead," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Palestinian Christians battle Israel barrier route

Associated Press/Diaa Hadid - In this Friday, April 19, 2013 photo, George Abu Eid, 22, sits with the map of the area near the village of Beit Jala in the Cremisan Valley, West Bank. Abu Eid's family land is threatened with expropriation to build Israel's separation barrier. Palestinian residents of this Christian village are hoping the new pope can succeed where others have failed as they press the Israeli government to drop plans to build a stretch of its West Bank separation barrier through their ancestral lands. (AP Photo/Diaa Hadid)

Palestinian Christians battle Israel barrier route

By DIAA HADID | Associated Press – 45 mins ago

BEIT JALA, West Bank (AP) — Palestinians in this Christian village are hoping the new pope can succeed where others have failed — pressing Israel to drop plans to build a stretch of its West Bank separation barrier through their picturesque valley.

Since Vatican properties are affected, residents have appealed to the Roman Catholic Church to use more of its significant influence in the Holy Land to reroute the barrier, even as local Catholic leaders hold a special protest Mass in threatened orchards each week.

The Vatican has called on Israel not to seize the lands, but local Palestinian Catholics want the new pontiff to lean more heavily on Israel.

"We have hope in the new pope, as he is close to the poor and the oppressed," said the Rev. Ibrahim Shomali, the Palestinian priest who has been leading the protests.

Israel has been building the barrier since 2002 in response to a wave of suicide bombings early last decade that killed hundreds of people. Israel says the barrier is needed to keep out Palestinian attackers.

Palestinians say the barrier is a land grab because it zigzags through the West Bank. When complete, nearly 10 percent of the West Bank, including many Israeli settlements, would lie on Israel's side, according to the United Nations. Roughly two-thirds of the 700 kilometer (450-mile) structure has been built.

Beit Jala is a postcard-pretty Christian town of 16,000 in the overwhelmingly Muslim West Bank. The likeness of the Palestinian patron, Saint George, is carved into building facades. Groceries sell beer and butchers sell pork, items banned under Islamic law. A bowling alley faces an Israeli military base.

Yet the village feels hemmed in. It abuts the biblical town of Bethlehem on one side. On another, barbed wire separates Beit Jala from the Jewish settlement of Har Gilo. Part of the separation barrier seals in another side, protecting a nearby road used by Jewish settlers. Residents say the planned stretch of construction will close off one of the village's last remaining open spaces.

"They are crowding us inside a ghetto," sighed Issa Khalilieh, whose family lost 12 acres (five hectares) in years of Israeli confiscations, and is poised to lose another three acres (one hectare) to the barrier.

An Israeli defense official said Jerusalem would remain "open and vulnerable" if the section isn't built. He noted that during the height of violence a decade ago, militants fired at nearby Gilo from Beit Jala. Although the fighting has quieted, he said Palestinians now use the valley to sneak into Israel to work. The official spoke anonymously under ministry policy.

In the Beit Jala area, Israel's Defense Ministry plans to seize some 790 acres (320 hectares) of the Cremisan Valley, said lawyer Ghaith Nasser. Israel's Defense Ministry would not confirm how much land they intend to seize.

Some one-third of the land is Vatican-owned, with a monastery surrounded by pines, playground and vineyard that monks have used to make wine since 1882. Nearby is a convent where nuns run a school for 600 Palestinian students. Some 60 families own the rest, a series of terraced olive and apricot orchards plunging into the valley. Residents go there to relax, barbecue and pray.

If the route goes as planned, the monastery and orchards will be on Israel's side of the barrier. The convent and school will be on the Palestinian side, surrounded by high concrete walls, lawyers said.

Since January 2012, about two dozen people have gathered in the groves every Friday to pray to save their lands. George Abu Eid, whose family's five acres (two hectares) of olive and lemon orchards are threatened, said activists hope to build international support.

On a recent windy Friday, some two dozen worshippers gathered in a circle around Rev. Shomali, who used a cloth-covered table as a makeshift altar, held down with a crucifix. Palestinians and European Christian volunteers sang hymns. One woman read part of a Bible passage. Rev. Shomali reminded the congregation that Christians are obligated to help the oppressed.

Rev. Shomali's protest Mass isn't sanctioned by the church. Instead, he said he was making an honest Christian act of standing with people defending their land. He said the village plans to send a delegation to the Vatican to plead their case.

Residents have been challenging the project in court for years, and construction remains on hold pending a ruling. A Catholic legal aid group is assisting the court battle, and the Latin Patriarchate, which oversees local Catholic affairs, said it sympathizes with the residents. The Vatican signed an October letter that condemned the barrier's route and called on Israel to keep the Cremisan valley attached to Beit Jala.

Rev. Shomali and residents said the letter wasn't enough. They want the Vatican to either join their legal case or publically condemn Israel.

"If the church stands with us, we would have our land. Israel is scared of the church and her voice," said Rev. Shomali.

Yigal Palmor, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said the government is in "direct dialogue" with the Vatican and affected monks and nuns in the area to try come to an amicable decision.

"We have been trying to make our case and reach an agreement on what would be possible," he said.

A senior church official confirmed discussions were underway with Israel. He spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

The Palestinians seek all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as parts of a future state.

For years, they have staged marches in villages affected by the barrier, sometimes succeeding in altering the route of the barrier. An Israeli-Palestinian documentary on the fight of residents in the village of Bilin to reroute the barrier was nominated for an Oscar this year.

The route of the barrier has drawn accusations that Israel is using the structure to incorporate some Jewish settlements, how home to more than 500,000 Israelis, into its future borders.

"The barrier has a route that ... is clearly not defined by what Israel calls security reasons," said Aviv Tatarsky of Ir Amim, an advocacy group that monitors the route of the barrier around Jerusalem. "The planned route goes way into the West Bank to put the settlement blocs within its area."

Israeli governments have said that they intend to keep the main settlement blocs close to the old 1949 cease-fire line along the West Bank under a peace treaty, offering the Palestinians Israeli land in exchange, but negotiations have failed to produce an agreement.

___

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Palestinian Ends Hunger Strike in Israeli Jail

Palestinian Ends Hunger Strike in Israeli Jail

By DIAA HADID Associated Press
JERUSALEM April 23, 2013 (AP)

A Palestinian prisoner who refused food for eight months ended his hunger strike on Tuesday after reaching a deal with Israeli for early release, his lawyer and the military said.

Samer Issawi began refusing food in August to protest his re-arrest last July. The 33-year-old Issawi became a symbol of the Palestinian struggle against Israel, and some demonstrations over his case turned violent.

Attorney Jawad Bulous said Israeli military prosecutors agreed to release Issawi after he serves another eight months.

The lawyer said Issawi ended his hunger strike in the presence of his sister and uncle. The Israeli military confirmed the deal but had no further details.

Issawi was sentenced in 2002 to 26 years in prison for his role in a series of shooting attacks targeting police cars and students at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. He was released as part of a 2011 deal that freed hundreds of Palestinians — many of them militants involved in deadly attacks — in exchange for an Israeli soldier held in Gaza for five years.

Under the terms of the prisoner exchange, Issawi was banned from entering the West Bank but travelled there three times. He also tried to persuade a witness to lie to Israeli security forces about his location, but he later confessed to violating the terms of his release, said another lawyer, who has overseen the case. That attorney spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as contradicting Issawi's supporters.

He said security forces accused Issawi of planning to kidnap Israeli soldiers and trying to amass weapons, but he was not charged with those offenses. After he was arrested again, he was expected to serve the rest of his original sentence — another 15 years.

Issawi was hospitalized in recent weeks as his health deteriorated. To pressure Israeli authorities to come to a deal, Issawi refused infusions of vitamins and minerals, his attorney said.

"No doubt, this is a big victory for Samer," Bulous said. The hunger strike "forced the Israeli side to reverse their position."

The prisoner issue is sensitive for Palestinians, many of whom have had a relative behind bars. There are some 4,500 Palestinians in Israel jails for sentences ranging from throwing stones to killing civilians, according to figures from Israeli prison authorities in February.

Palestinians see the prisoners as heroes in their struggle for statehood. Israelis view them as terrorists.

Over the past years, the prisoners have turned to hunger strikes to pressure Israel for better conditions, to try end indefinite detention without charge and to end sentences they see as unjust.

Also Tuesday, Israeli forces demolished some 20 tin shacks and animal pens belonging to semi-nomadic Palestinian communities in the northern West Bank, the U.N. said.

Israeli officials routinely say that the flimsy tin houses are in a military firing zone. Palestinians say the area has been their traditional home and grazing for at least a generation.

After the demolitions, a 46-year-old woman sat with her week-old grandchild in the shade near her destroyed shack.

"We will rebuild it," said her mother who gave her name as Umm Ayman. "We've got nowhere else to go."

An Israeli military official said he was looking into the matter.
———
AP writer Ian Deitch contributed to this report.
———
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Palestinians hold first Bethlehem marathon

Palestinians hold first Bethlehem marathon

By EYAD MUGHRABI | Associated Press – 12 hrs ago


BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Hundreds of people on Sunday took part in the West Bank's first marathon, looping around the biblical city of Bethlehem four times on a course that was limited by the confines of Israel's sprawling separation barrier.

The race was meant as a political statement as much as a sporting event.

One participant wore a T-shirt honoring the victims killed in last week's bombing at the Boston Marathon, while other runners waved slogans in support of Palestinians. The area was decorated with green, white and red balloons symbolizing the Palestinian flag.

Runners jogged near the stone-clad Church of the Nativity, built over the grotto where tradition says Jesus was born, past a charred Israeli military watchtower where Palestinian youths often hurl flaming bottles during protests and alongside the concrete barrier. The 8-meter (26-foot) high barrier, partly scrawled with graffiti demanding freedom, hems in Bethlehem.

"This is illegally occupied land," one slogan read. "The wall must fall," read another.

Israel built the barrier a decade ago in response to a wave of suicide bombings carried out by West Bank Palestinians. Israel says the barrier keeps out militants, who killed hundreds of Israelis. Palestinians see its route as a land grab because it frequently dips into the West Bank, swallowing their lands.

About 1,000 people participated in the race, which included shorter 10-kilometer (six-mile) and 20-kilometer (12-mile) options. Around a quarter of participants undertook the full 42-kilometer (26.2 miles) run, said Itidal Abdul-Ghani of the Palestinian Olympic Committee.

"C'mon guys, you gotta go a lot faster than that!" yelled a voice from the crowd in English as the pack began jogging.

The fastest runner, Abdul-Nasser Jawani of the West Bank town of Jericho came in at 3 hours, 9 minutes, 47 seconds. The fastest woman was a Palestinian from Bethlehem who came in at 3 hours, 36 minutes, 37 seconds. Abdul-Ghani did not have her full name.

The Palestinians seek an independent state in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Palestinians and their international supporters have turned toward sports in recent years to draw attention to their struggle for statehood, although that has sometimes backfired.

In March, the United Nations had to cancel a Gaza marathon because the territory's conservative Islamic rulers wouldn't let women participate, claiming it was immodest.

The mood was far more relaxed in relatively liberal Bethlehem during Sunday's "Right to Movement Palestinian Marathon," held in cool, rainy weather.

Most of the women jogged in loose shirts and tights, although some wore Muslim headscarves. Most men wore shorts and sweatshirts. Loud Arabic music blasted in the background.

The participants jogged four times around Bethlehem because there wasn't enough space to do a straight marathon due to the barrier, Abdul-Ghani said. Israel also has full control over nearby areas, making it complicated for Palestinians to run there.

Underscoring hostilities, Abdul-Ghani said Israelis weren't welcome to join the marathon while their military occupies Palestinian lands. Israeli officials would not allow some two dozen Gaza hopefuls to cross through the Jewish state to reach the West Bank to attend the marathon.

The marathon came six days after the Boston Marathon bombings. The Sunday run also coincided with the London Marathon.

Participant Demitri Awwad, a Palestinian-American from Fenton, Mich., wore a T-shirt honoring the Boston Marathon victims under his official marathon shirt as he ran in the 10-kilometer race. It had a picture of 8-year-old Martin Richard, with the words "No more hurting people" emblazoned below.

"'No more hurting people' — it's a very simple thing from a kid and it's what we all should live by," said the 33-year-old.

Other runners touted other causes: One group ran with a banner demanding the freedom of a Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi, who has been refusing food since August. Two Palestinian men smoking cigarettes looked on as they ran by.

Israelis said they also planned to hold five-kilometer (30nuke) evening runs in the cities of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beersheva in solidarity with the Boston Marathon victims.

Organizer Ilia Rabinovich said the gesture was to show Americans that it was important to "continue running."

The 26-year-old marathon enthusiast estimated some 300 people had signed up for the runs.

"We feel a lot of compassion to these innocent people who are victims of terrorist attacks," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Iraqi Catholics celebrate Easter

Iraqi Catholics celebrate Easter

March 31, 2013, 3:58 am

By DIAA HADID

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's Catholic Christians flocked to churches to celebrate Easter Sunday, praying, singing and rejoicing in the resurrection of Christ behind high blast walls and tight security cordons.

It was the first Easter since the election of Pope Francis in Rome, and worshipers said they hoped their new spiritual leader would help strengthen their tiny community that has shrunk under the joint pressures of militant attacks and economic hardships.

At the St. Joseph Chaldean Church in Baghdad, some 200 worshipers stood and sat during parts of the Easter mass led by Father Saad Sirop.

"We pray for love and peace to spread through the world," said worshiper Fatin Yousef, 49. Like most worshippers she arrived have dressed immaculately for mass, her hair tumbling in salon-created curls, wearing a tidy black skirt, low-heeled pumps and a striped shirt. "We hope Pope Francis will help make it better for Christians in Iraq."

There are an estimated 400,000 to 600,000 Christians in Iraq, with most belonging to ancient eastern churches. There has been no census in Iraq for 16 years, making precise figures difficult to obtain.

An estimated two-thirds of Iraq's Christians are Catholics of the Chaldean church and the smaller Assyrian Catholic church. Worshipers of both churches chant in versions of ancient Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, although the dialects would be mutually unintelligible.

Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Iraqi Christians have suffered repeated attacks by Islamic militants. Hundreds of thousands have left the country, with church officials estimating their communities have at least halved. The worst attack was at Baghdad's soaring Our Lady of Salvation church in October 2010. It killed more than 50 worshipers and wounded scores more.

More broadly, decades of immigration have shrunken the size of Christian communities throughout the Middle East, with most leaving for better opportunities and to join families abroad.

Other Christians in the region no longer feel comfortable among majority-Muslim communities that many believe have become more outwardly pious and politically Islamist over the decades.

They included Iraqi Christian worshiper Yousef's son, who moved to live with relatives in Arizona last year. Yousef said she was arranging for her other daughter and son to immigrate.

"There's still fear here, and there's no stability in this country," she said.

Iraqi officials have made efforts to secure churches since the violence of 2010.

High blast walls topped with netting and barbed wire surrounded the St. Joseph Church in Baghdad in the middle-class district of Karradeh. Blue-khaki clad Iraqi police guarded roads surrounding the church and checked papers of passers-by as worshipers filtered inside.

Four Iraqi Christian volunteers, two men and two women, stood at the church entrance to double-check who was coming in.

White-robed church volunteers marched down the church aisle behind Father Sirop, who chanted and waved thickly-scented incense that wafted through the building. The white-painted interior was adorned with three ornate chandeliers and a series of simple paintings illustrating the life of Christ.

Worshipers stood for lengthy passages of Sirop's mass, at one point bursting into applause when he told them, "Celebrate! You are Christians!"

Palestinians building museum to tell their story

Palestinians building museum to tell their story

By DIAA HADID | Associated Press – 1 hr 14 mins ago


BIRZEIT, West Bank (AP) — Palestinians on Thursday began construction of the West Bank's largest museum devoted to their history, planning to tell diverse stories of Palestinians in their land and of millions who live abroad.

The museum represents a step in the Palestinian quest for statehood by creating a repository for 200 years of history, alongside galleries and space for debates about the Palestinian cause, said director Jack Persekian.

"I am hoping that this museum would be able to give the opportunity for many Palestinians to tell their stories. We are looking at a museum that doesn't have one particular narrative line that it wants to consecrate through its exhibits," he said.

The privately funded museum, which has government support, is the biggest such project the Palestinians have undertaken in terms of scale, space and budgets.

Persekian hoped the museum would tell stories not just of Palestinian Muslims and Christians, but also of Jews who lived in what was Britain-administered Palestine before Israel was founded in 1948.

"We would like to think about (the museum) in an inclusive way," he said.

The museum draws attention to the conflicting narratives at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For Jews, the establishment of Israel reinforced the homecoming of an exiled people with ties to the Holy Land going back thousands of years. Palestinians refer to the establishment of Israel, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who either fled or were driven from their homes, as their "nakba," or catastrophe.

Israel has dozens of museums with vast collections of biblical texts and artifacts connecting the Jewish people to the Holy Land. Palestinians have about 30 museums in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the areas where they hope to establish a state, but nothing on the scale of the new project.

The $15 million first phase is scheduled to take two years to build and cover 3,000 square meters, or 32,000 square feet, of space. The planned glass and stone building was designed by the Dublin-based architectural firm Heneghan Peng, which is also building the new Egyptian national museum.

Dozens of Palestinian officials attended the laying of the museum's foundation stone on Thursday on a grassy hill near the Palestinian university town of Birzeit, with views of rocky hills, pines and olive groves. The site can be reached only over a bumpy road, and few residents appeared aware of the project.

Phase one will include a gallery, cafeteria, classrooms, a gift shop and staff offices. The museum's board plans to have the second phase built within a decade, expanding it to 9,000 square meters, or nearly 100,000 square feet. It is being overseen by the Welfare Association, a Palestinian aid and development group supported by philanthropists that has close ties to the governing Palestinian Authority.

The museum will focus on the past 200 years, from the Turkish-based Ottoman Empire through the British mandate over Palestine. It will cover Israel's creation in 1948 and the subsequent displacement of Palestinians during the war surrounding Israel's founding.


It will continue with the history of Palestinians abroad as well as their living conditions in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and east Jerusalem under Jordanian and Israeli control as well as the last 20 years of partial self-rule.

The organizers hope the museum will lead to partnerships in other territories where Palestinians live. There are refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, along with Palestinian communities in the West, particularly in Chile.

"We want to try to connect what is now a fragmented geography and a fragmented nation," Persekian said.

Although it's a private initiative, it fits into a series of institutions Palestinians are building in anticipation of statehood.

Palestinians have built other museums in the past few years, said Khaled Hourani, director of the International Academy of Art Palestine. He said the unrelated initiatives indicate a trend to establish spaces that could serve as interactive repositories for Palestinian art, artifacts and the stories of the aging generation of Palestinians who endured the 1948 displacement.

There's a museum dedicated to Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish and another under construction for the late leader Yasser Arafat. In Gaza, two museums display artifacts from the territory's thousands of years of history as a crossroad between Asia and Africa.

"A museum is like an airport or hospital. It is one of the things that is part of a state," Hourani said.