Nour Kharma, Gaza, Rafat, UCONN student from Bangladesh, Amina Jung, Elizabeth Aaronsohn, We Refuse to be Enemies, Chengiah Ragaveni, professors at CCSU Central CT State University, Stanley Heller, The Struggle, Barbara Olson, Madison-Rafah Sister City,
14-year old Nour has lost her friend Christine. The 9th grader's school was bombed by Israeli forces and destroyed. War is all around her. She pleads with Obama to help all Palestinians get their human rights.
Sprouts is a weekly program that features local radio production and stories from many radio stations and local media groups around the world. It is produced in collaboration with community radio stations and independent producers across the country. The program is coordinated and distributed by Pacifica Radio and offered free of charge to all radio stations.
For information, or if you would like to feature your work on Sprouts, contact Ursula Ruedenberg at ursula@pacifica.org.
Clips used from, film, The Iron Wall, shows the Occupied Territories from the air, documenting the tiny area that is left to Palestinians from lands confiscated by Israel since the Oslo Peace Accords. Israel has moved steadily to construct housing for Israeli citizens on more and more Palestinian land, and candidates.
A Gaza teenager reaches out to President Barack Obama for help after Israeli bombs kill her young friend Christine and destroy her school. Christine died while en route to the hospital. On February 4th were were able to reach 14-year-old Nour Kharma who has been living in Gaza City throughout many days of war. She joined us by phone to talk about the story she wrote for the online magazine Counterpunch. Her title was, Will I die too?
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, in most instances it takes hours before an ambulance reaches the wounded. Human rights groups like Save the Children have reported instances where their aid trucks were fired upon by Israel, and both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are calling on Israel to stop using heavy artillery in residential areas of Gaza City which violate the prohibition under the laws of war against indiscriminate attacks.
Zahir Janmohamed, Advocacy Director for Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa sector, explains what it is like on the ground in Gaza. Their first team on the ground sent home shocking reports.
There have been 1300 reported deaths with 5,000 wounded, and a large proportion of Gaza's casualties are civilians. The UN is urging Israel to open the borders that seal Gazans in without food, water, or medicines, despite the fact that there are thousands of wounded civilians.
Then, peace activists at the Storrs chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, a pacifist Quaker group, gathered to watch a film created by Palestinian director Mohammed Alatar and produced by the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees and Palestinians for Peace and Democracy. They were joined by local residents, students, and professors who held a lively discussion afterward.
We hear from some of the participants, and in some cases they wanted to send messages to Nour Kharma. Rafat, 20-year-old student from Bangladesh. Amina Jung was born in Morocco and is now an American citizen. She worries about her own child in school in Connecticut, and said she had a message of hope for Nour and also a message for Americans and others who might help. Connecticut peace activist Stanley Heller, founder of the Middle East Crisis Committee in New Haven, and producer of the cable TV show The Struggle, talked about the difficulty people have had trying to bring lifesaving aid into Gaza. Elizabeth Aaronsohn, Associate Professor at Central Ct State University in New Britain, Connecticut was at the film to respond to questions afterward. At one point Jews dressed for prayer could be seen shooting into Palestinian homes and the one time civil rights worker in Mississippi, cringed, as Jews also threw a Molotov cocktail into a crowded Palestinian home. She is co-founder of the peace group, We Refuse to be Enemies, which consists of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Professor Chengiah Ragaveni of CCSU, Central Connecticut State University. CCSU student Amanda West.
As we considered how to help Nour Kharma we turned to Barbara Olson of the Madison-Rafah Sister City group in Madison, WI. She is a local activist working tirelessly to build person to person relationships between the people of Wisconsin and America and Rafah, near Gaza. Her group coordinates their efforts with assistance from the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza City. www.madisonrafah.org/ They are a 501c3 non profit working in partnership with the El Mezan center for Human Rights in Gaza.
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