refugees – The News Desk

13Nov

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The West Should Welcome Gaza Refugees

By Danny Danon and Ram Ben-BarakHamas’s unprovoked terrorist attack on Oct. 7 has endangered not only Israel but the more than two million people who live in the Gaza Strip. Although Hamas won 2006 elections in Gaza and took control of the area from the Palestinian Authority the following year, the group has said that it bears no responsibility for the people living there. On Oct. 15, Hamas operatives stole food and medical supplies from humanitarian trucks. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency reported the theft in a tweet, which it later deleted. But U.N. sources confirmed the theft to Israel’s Walla News, and Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians confirmed that fuel and medical supplies went to Hamas. Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 879...

The Agony of Waiting for a Ceasefire That Never Comes

It is 6:20 P.M. on Friday, October 27th. My children are playing in the house where we have taken refuge, in the Jabalia refugee camp. “I’m getting hungry,” my wife, Maram, whispers to me. “Let’s eat some snacks.” We sneak into the next room and sit on the stairs, where our children are less likely to see us. We miss these private moments, when we could spend time together and joke.Outside, a red light flashes in the dark sky, like lightning; it is followed not by rain but by rubble that pounds the roofs of houses around us. Maram stops eating. When I stand to peer outside, the air pressure pushes me back.I walk over to my father, who is anxiously holding up a radio to his ear. “Al Jazeera says that they have lost connection with their correspondents in Gaza,” he says. “There is no signal...

Many Israelis Are Refugees From Arab Lands

As people around the world demonstrate for Palestinian rights, we shouldn’t overlook another group of Middle Eastern refugees who also have suffered for decades but whose plight is seldom discussed: the displaced Jewish refugees from Arab lands. I should know; I am one of them. Our story needs to be told. I was born in Baghdad, Iraq, as were my parents and grandparents. When Cyrus the Great liberated Babylon in 538 B.C. and gave Jews the choice to leave, my ancestors stayed. By 1948 an estimated 135,000 Jews lived in Baghdad, comprising one-third of the city’s population—more Jews by proportion than Warsaw or New York at the time. Iraqi Jews were active in government, launched businesses and held prominent positions. Iraq’s first finance minister, Sassoon Eskell, was Jewish. He insisted t...