Untied Palestinian Appeal collaborated with Love Thy Neighbor (LTN) to conduct the First Nonviolence Leadership training in the West Bank, Palestine. LTN is a US-based 501C(3) organization with an office in Ramallah. They have been conducting Kingian nonviolence training throughout the West Bank - based on the principals developed by Martin Luther King, Jr. Working with Dr. Bernard Lafayette, a compatriot of Dr. King during the Civil Rights movement, LTN has trained over 180 Palestinians in this very active nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. LTN carefully selected 14 graduates of these trainings to participate in the leadership training, a second phase in preparing nonviolent Palestinian leaders. These future leaders were brought to Ramallah for the training.

As I travel to the occupied Palestine territories to teach a course on nonviolent leadership I am reminded that, for Palestinians, this is a way of life. I will be working with Love Thy Neighbor (LTN), one of UPA’s partners in this effort. LTN collaborates with Dr. Bernard Lafayette in conducting Kingian nonviolence workshops throughout the world. Together, they have facilitated about half a dozen sessions in the West Bank. Nonviolence is deeply rooted in the Palestinian culture.

As of July 29, Israel announced that it will allow a limited amount of cement and iron into Gaza for the first time since operation Cast Lead ended in January 2009, according to Israeli officials.

Key word being "limited."

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have authorized the transfer of 90 metric tons of cement and 60 metric tons of iron and machinery into the Gaza strip to reconstruct the flour mill and other vital projects. (Some 50,000 metric tons of cement are needed to rebuild completely destroyed houses, according to the UNDP).

Israel's Knesset (parliament) also authorized the transfer of steel pipes for the reconstruction of Gaza's Khan Younis sewage plant.

This new update comes after seven months during which only food, certain hygiene products, medicine and medical supplies were allowed into Gaza.

July 9, 2009

Bad news today includes a report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Five years on, Israel continues to disregard the ICJ's Advisory Opinion on the Wall”; a report from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) detailing how the Palestinian security services in the Gaza Strip has been seizing passports belonging to a number of individuals, in order to prevent them from traveling, even for medical treatment; and news that Israel and the United States have reached a deal allowing the Jewish state to build about 2,500 housing units already under construction in West Bank settlements.

But let’s look at some of the good work taking place:

Good Work Taking Place in Gaza

July 7, 2009

During this “period of relative calm,” as it is so often referred to in the American media, another civilian casualty must be counted.

A Palestinian teenage girl was killed by a shell that exploded in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Thursday and which both hospital workers and Hamas officials said was fired by an Israeli tank. Israeli military officials, on the other hand, said an initial investigation showed the girl was probably killed by a misfiring mortar round fired by Palestinian militants during clashes with soldiers near a border crossing in the area.

The Palestinian hospital workers said three other people were wounded when the shell struck near a house in al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing the girl.

Also, on July 1, Israeli military forces shot and injured four Palestinians, including three children in an area south of Nablus City. All four were transported to the hospitals for medical treatment.