[An Nahar] The U.N. voiced "serious concern" about the Taliban's persistent threat after the group killed seven people in two suicide attacks in Kabul Thursday, including one targeting a play at a French-financed high school.
The warning comes with the Afghan capital having been hit by a series of deadly attacks in recent weeks, highlighting the fragility of security as foreign combat troops leave after more than a decade of war.
The late afternoon bombing at the Istiqlal High School, attached to the city's long-established French cultural center, killed a foreign national and came just hours after another suicide attack on a bus carrying Afghan troops in the capital's suburbs killed six soldiers.
The bomber killed a foreign national and wounded at least seven people, according to Kabul police official General Farid Afzail, who added that the perpetrator is thought to have been a teenager.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, however, said the "barbaric" attack had left several people dead.
The United Nations Security Council issued a unanimous statement condemning the attacks which also voiced "serious concern at the threats posed by the Taliban, al-Qaida and other terrorist and extremist groups, and illegal armed groups."
The blast struck during a musical theatre production entitled "Heartbeat: The Silence After the Explosion", which was a condemnation of suicide attacks, the BBC reported.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed both bombings in separate email statements, saying the theater show was "desecrating Islamic values" and "propaganda against jihad".
Posted by: Fred ||
12/13/2014 00:00 ||
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[10 views]
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#1
The U.N. voiced "serious concern" about the Taliban's persistent threat after the group killed seven people in two suicide attacks in Kabul Thursday, including one targeting a play at a French-financed high school.
"Well, that's done. Lunch?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/13/2014 8:16 Comments ||
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#2
You'll know it'll get serious when they have an underling draft a 'note of concern'.
The Taliban is not a sovereign nation with a government or a foreign minister so they can't write them a sternly worded letter...much less a full and frank exchange of ideas.
They are at least wise enough to know either of the above will get their head stuck on a fence somewhere.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
12/13/2014 23:48 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] Mali admitted Friday that prisoners had been freed in exchange for the release of French hostage Serge Lazarevic, confirming information given to AFP earlier this week by a security source in the west African country.
"It's a fact, everyone knows, there is no need to deny reality," Justice Minister Mohammed Ali Bathily told La Belle France 24 television in response to a question on the issue, three days after Lazarevic, who was kidnapped by Islamist gunnies in Mali in 2011, was freed.
The 51-year-old was snatched while on a business trip with fellow Frenchie Philippe Verdon in a kidnapping claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Verdon, who suffered from an ulcer and tachycardia -- an abnormally fast heartbeat -- was found rubbed out last year, and those close to his family suggested he had been executed as he was weak.
Lazarevic was La Belle France's last remaining hostage, and questions swirled around the terms of his release.
A Malian security source had told AFP on condition of anonymity that Bamako had freed several AQIM prisoners "on request from Gay Paree."
"I can tell you that men, who some may say are Lions of Islam but to us are prisoners, were freed in exchange for the French hostage," the source said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/13/2014 00:14 ||
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[4 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
Russian human rights activists were pelted with eggs on Thursday as they held a news conference in Moscow to condemn the burning of the homes of relatives of suspected Islamist insurgents in Chechnya.
Two burly young men threw eggs at Alexander Cherkasov of the Memorial human rights group and Igor Kalyapin of the Joint Mobile Group watchdog that monitors abuses in Chechnya. The pair shouted slogans in support of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who last week said families of Islamist militants should be banished and have their homes destroyed, prompting the torching of several houses.
The egg-throwing assailants shouted, "Ramzan dragged this country out of the abyss," and "How else can we fight them?" before leaving the building. The organizers called police who only arrived over an hour later.
No Chinese dignitaries have been invited to attend a ceremony next week marking the third anniversary of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's death, the Voice of Russia reported Thursday.
Nor was I. Fred? Badanov? TW?
Perhaps it went to the wrong post office. They get territorial out here if the wrong zip code is used, which can delay things for weeks.
It said this was "evidence of worsening relations between North Korea and China."
A diplomatic source in Beijing said, "There is the chance of North Korea sending an invitation at the last minute, but China will not send officials to Pyongyang without an invitation."
The last Chinese official to visit the North was Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin in February this year.
Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao reported rumors that Beijing has given up on supporting North Korea and the North has been warned that China's unquestioning loyalty has come to an end.
I'll believe it when they stop sending food and oil to Pudgy, open their border to North Koreans to want to flee, and sit down with the ROK to decide how to plan the future of the peninsula...
Wang Hongguang, a former senior Chinese general, earlier wrote in the official Global Times, "China is not a savior. Should North Korea really collapse, not even China can save it."
Nor should it try...
North Korean leader Fat Boy Kim Jong-un is widely expected to use the anniversary to announce his latest plans for the isolated country.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/13/2014 00:00 ||
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[11 views]
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#1
I am certain that they were crushed by not being asked to attend, and will be weepy and disconsolate for days.
(Sarc, I truly hope.)
Me, I would sit at home and giggle, and have another beer.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/13/2014 7:52 Comments ||
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#2
can I sit next to Alec Baldwin and Janeane Garofalo?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/13/2014 13:24 Comments ||
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#3
Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao...
Which you overcharged me $4 for! I want my money back, or I'm gonna sue your ass off!
#5
I am not partial to insect fondu anyway. Hopefully, the transcript will be available for the 3 hours of self-congratulatory speeches honoring their inflated and worthless accomplishments. It will be interesting to know what will be the next project now that they are done installing lawns. Are their millions of birdbaths in our future? Will there be a velodrome for unicycles? How about laser tag?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/13/2014 23:46 Comments ||
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Three big prestige projects launched by new leader Fat Boy Kim Jong-un are bleeding North Korea dry, exacerbating hardships and squeezing their pockets, according to a South Korean government official.
They are the construction of a ski resort, an equestrian club in Pyongyang and the attempt to turn empty plots of barren land into lawns.
We've read about each one before but it's increasingly clear that these were, well, "ill-advised"...
The official said the regime is forcing North Korean diplomats and workers overseas to remit US$300 each to Pyongyang for the construction of the ski resort. It has also told Chongryon, a large pro-Pyongyang Korean organization in Japan, to raise funds. People are being "encouraged" to send gifts to soldiers working on the ski resort, and they have little choice but to comply.
The regime is also pressing many people into labor at the equestrian club and diverting resources that could be better spent elsewhere. It sent senior party officials overseas to sign a deal to buy racehorses worth hundreds of millions of won.
Last year, the piggish Kim began a nationwide greening campaign, causing a vast acreage of sod to be laid over barren lots.
The North has established a national "lawn research center" and overseas missions have been told to send grass seeds home. It has urged residents to lay sod over any empty plots in schools and villages.
It's like an enormous Tru-Green project...
The source said, "With no sufficient financial resources, the regime is trying to complete Suet Face Kim Jong-un's signature projects by certain deadlines and people are getting more and more restive."
Maybe they'll have a revolution...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/13/2014 00:00 ||
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[9 views]
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#1
hmmmm choices
- ensure food supply
- useful productive employment
- trade goods/services
AWWW FUKKIT
gimme polo grounds and maybe a alalom run - now we will lay down some grass and hope the peasants don't eat it
Posted by: Bov Flimbers ||
12/13/2014 2:04 Comments ||
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#2
Perhaps I can talk Deacon into going ex-pat with me and make big bucks training Nork's green hunter-jumpers.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/13/2014 8:20 Comments ||
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#4
This just demonstrates how badly we have botched the nuclear negotiations by offering useful stuff as incentives. None of our diplomats study our history anymore. Don't they know what we have the Manhatten's for their land? We should have offered roller rink technology, an International Pancakes franchise and a visit from the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. I know it seems like a low ball offer, but a party with Kim K is going for $1M.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/13/2014 23:36 Comments ||
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[DAWN] Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... on Friday condemned anti-Moslem demonstrations centred on the eastern city of Dresden, saying there was "no place in Germany" for hatred of Moslems or any other minority.
In a speech at a party congress of her Bavarian allies in Nuremberg, Merkel also denounced an attack on buildings in a nearby town being turned into refuge for asylum-seekers. The structures were set on fire and daubed with swastikas.
"It is unbearable when homes of asylum-seekers are defiled, when people try to make radical slogans," Merkel said, adding that everyone coming to Germany had the right to be treated decently.
Earlier on Friday, Merkel's spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz said: "In the name of the government and the chancellor I can say quite clearly that there is no place in Germany for religious hatred, no matter which religion people belong to."
"There is no place for Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... , anti-Semitism or any form of xenophobia or racism," Wirtz said of the growing Monday evening marches in Dresden under the motto PEGIDA, standing for "Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West".
Public expressions of anti-immigrant sentiment are largely taboo in mainstream German politics because of the Nazis' mass-murder of Jews and other groups in the Holocaust. Merkel argues that Germany needs immigrants to avoid a demographic crisis.
But local officials say they are struggling to cope with the largest number of asylum-seekers in Europe, with net immigration at its highest levels in two decades.
A backlash is being felt: this week Merkel's conservatives debated banning the burka, the full body covering worn by some Moslem women, and her Bavarian allies had to drop a proposal to oblige immigrants to speak German at home.
The latest PEGIDA march on Monday drew up to 10,000 people and almost as many counter-demonstrators.
The organisers, who began two months ago with a few hundred people, say they are not against immigrants but want to protest against Islamic extremism and the influx of asylum-seekers.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said not all the marchers were racists and they included some who were "expressing their fears about the challenges of the times".
Dresden is the site of Germany's biggest annual neo-Nazi march, on the anniversary of World War Two bombings.
German officials are alarmed at the rise in both anti-Moslem and anti-Semitic sentiment. This year has seen right-wingers join forces with soccer hooligans against Salafist Moslems and a rise in attacks on Jews linked to the Middle East crisis.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/13/2014 00:00 ||
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[5 views]
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#1
see here's the thing - there should be no place in Germany for hatred of Germans - the thinking here is all ass over tit
Posted by: Bov Flimbers ||
12/13/2014 2:07 Comments ||
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[IraqiNews.com] Karbala Police Commander, General Ghanim al-Husseini, assured on Thursday ?The security plan set to secure the pilgrims of the Arbaeen Pilgrimage will be extended for five to six days because of the departure of the pilgrims for Karbala province.?
Husseini said in a press statement received by IraqiNews.com ?The climax of the pilgrimage will be tomorrow Saturday, but the departure of the pilgrims from Karbala province might continue for five to six days.?
He added ?Arab and foreign pilgrims who arrived in Karbala province reached more than four million pilgrims from different nationalities.?
[IraqiNews.com] On Wednesday, Kurdistan Democratic Party led by President of the Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani ... hereditary head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, maybe a little too close to the Medes and the Persians for most people's tastes... said it refuses arming Arab and Turkmen components in Kirkuk province, pointing out that whoever wishes to fight should join the Peshmerga forces ranks.
The party said in a statement quoted by the site ?KDP? and followed by IraqiNews.com, ?After the spread of news about arming the Arabs and Turkmen components on Kirkuk borders; we, as the democratic Kurdistan party, are against the establishment of militia forces,? pointing out that, ?Whoever wishes to fight can join the Peshmerga forces ranks with no hindrance of any kind, because Peshmerga forces are all about protecting and defending the region without discrimination.?
The party added that, ?Now, we are working to form Sunni power in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , Tikrit and some other areas, but what some of the Turkmen are claiming is false because the Turkmen are either Sunnis or Shiites,? noting, ?What is being said is nothing but political speculations. There is a regular force in Kirkuk; it is the Peshmerga ,which is protecting all Kirkuk borders and does never discriminate among components and religions of the Kirkuk people.?
Party said,?The establishment of the militia will cause insecurity in the region,? noting that, ?If each component formed its own militia, then there would be no law authority.?
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi said Thursday that the number of pilgrims in the city of Karbala for the annual Arbaeen commemoration had reached a record 17.5 million this year. Arbaeen, which marks the end of the 40-day period of mourning after the anniversary of Imam Hussein’s death, is considered one of the largest religious gatherings in the world.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/13/2014 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Portuguese parliament adopted Friday a recommendation calling on the government to recognize the Paleostinian state, drawing votes from the majority and opposition.
The motion, filed jointly by the ruling center-right majority and the opposition Socialist party, proposes "recognizing, in coordination with the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , the state of Paleostine as independent and sovereign".
The collapse of the latest U.S.-sponsored talks in April, along with Israel pressing on with building settlements in territory the Paleostinians want for their state, triggered several European countries to review their position towards supporting an independent Paleostinian state.
While most developing countries recognize Paleostine as a state, most Western European countries do not, supporting the Israeli and U.S. position that an independent Paleostinian state should emerge from negotiations with Israel.
The Portuguese parliament's move comes three days after the Irish government said it will accept a motion calling for recognizing Paleostine as a state. The bill is said to be proposed next week by the opposition.
The latest steps follow that of Sweden, which became the biggest Western European country to recognize Paleostine, and parliaments in Spain, Britannia and La Belle France held votes in which they backed non-binding resolutions in favor of recognition.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/13/2014 00:00 ||
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[6 views]
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#1
Their ancestors didn't want Jews living in their country. They don't want Jews living in our own. Progress.
[GatestoneInstitute] "I'm sad that I'm back in the Gaza Strip. I went through happy times [in Israeli detention], where I had food, calm, good work, although I did not receive a salary. Those were unforgettable days where I had delicious food that we don't have in the Gaza Strip." — Rabi, 16, who crossed the border from Gaza and was held in detention for three months before being sent back home.
#1
that may be the most honest, yet thoroughly depressing thing ever from a paleosimian - and if jail is preferable to "freedom" then something is way wrong with your definition of freedom - any guesses what that might be?
Posted by: Bov Flimbers ||
12/13/2014 2:30 Comments ||
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#2
Exchanging one jail for another, and the Israeli jail was more pleasant. That says it all about Gaza.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/13/2014 14:04 Comments ||
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Moderate Moslem Indonesia isn't as moderate as it used to be...
[AnNahar] The chief editor of a leading English-language newspaper in Moslem-majority Indonesia has been named a suspect in a blasphemy case after the publication of a cartoon about the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group, police said Friday.
The Jakarta Post's Meidyatama Suryodiningrat could be nabbed Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! for up to five years if found guilty, and is the latest person to face action under the country's tough blasphemy laws that have been criticised by rights groups as overly harsh and outdated.
The cartoon, published in the paper on July 3, shows a man raising a flag emblazoned with the Arabic phrase "There is no God but Allah" over a picture of a skull and crossbones, with armed fighters in the background.
Following an outcry from Islamic groups, the Jakarta Post issued a front-page apology and retracted the cartoon five days later, insisting it was meant to "critique the use of religious symbols" and as a "reproach" to IS, a brutal Islamist group which holds vast swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq.
A group called the Jakarta Moslem Preachers Corps filed a complaint to the police and on Friday, Jakarta police front man Rikwanto, who goes by one name, said that Suryodiningrat had been officially named a suspect the previous day.
"The status of MS has been upgraded to suspect," said the front man, using the editor's initials, the usual practice in criminal cases in Indonesia.
Local media reported that he will be summoned for questioning next week. In some criminal cases in Indonesia, people are first named a suspect and only detained at a later date.
In a statement published on the Jakarta Post's website, Suryodiningrat said that the paper was "amazed" by the move.
"What we produced was a journalistic piece that criticised the ISIS (IS) movement, which has carried out violence in the name of religion," he said.
Rights group Amnesia Amnesty International last month called on new President Joko Widodo to abolish the blasphemy laws, saying that cases of people being nabbed Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! for infringing the regulations had "skyrocketed" under his predecessor.
The editor of Indonesia's version of Playboy magazine, Erwin Arnada, was nabbed Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! for two years in 2010 for indecency but walked free in 2011 after the Supreme Court accepted his appeal.
#1
The cartoon, published in the paper on July 3, shows a man raising a flag emblazoned with the Arabic phrase "There is no God but Allah" over a picture of a skull and crossbones, with armed fighters in the background.
[An Nahar] Iraqi woman Saja al-Dulaimi, who was identified as a divorcee of Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... , has been moving freely in Leb under the name of Malak Abdullah.
Al-Dulaimi married Paleostinian Khalaf, in his thirties, while he was held at Roumieh prison after Fatah al-Islam A Syrian-incubated al-Qaeda work-alike that they think can be turned off if no longer needed to keep the Lebanon pot stirred. leaders convinced him of providing her a cover up to move freely in Leb, As Safir newspaper published on Friday.
According to the report, Khalaf, who hails from the northern Paleostinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, isn't involved in any security act. However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... he only helped al-Dulaimi to move between the North, the Bekaa Valley and Roumieh prison where she visited Islamist detainees and provided them with their needs.
The daily said that Khalaf didn't leave his wife alone and accompanied her in all her movements.
Al-Dulaimi was nabbed Please don't kill me! at a checkpoint on al-Madfoun Bridge in the North, along with Khalaf and her daughter Hajar, 8. The arrest took place last month and was kept a secret until the media put it out to public.
Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq said on Tuesday that Dulaimi is still in prison after the judiciary issued an arrest warrant for her, denying that she was handed over to the General Security.
Al-Dulaimi is reportedly detained over her links to Baghdadi, for communicating with terrorist organizations on Lebanese territories and holding fake identification papers.
It is unclear how many wives the IS leader has.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/13/2014 00:00 ||
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[13 views]
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Tongue in cheek?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/13/2014 22:05 Comments ||
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Truly a keyboard "warrior", a brave Lion of Islam.
[AnNahar] An influential Twitter account supporting the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group was run by an executive from Bangalore in India, Britannia's Channel 4 News reported.
The channel named the pro-jihad tweeter "@ShamiWitness" as "Mehdi", but did not reveal his full name as he said his life would be in danger.
O brave, brave Lion of Islam!
"He is an executive in Bangalore working for an Indian conglomerate," the channel said on Thursday.
Clearly he hasn't been given enough responsibility, if he has the spare time to play like this.
The report quoted him as saying that he had not joined IS jihadist ranks in Iraq and Syria because his family was financially dependent on him.
"If I had a chance to leave everything and join them I might have," he was quoted as saying.
...or might not...
The account, which had 17,700 followers including many imported muscle, was shut down following the Channel 4 report.
Indian police told news hounds they were investigating.
"I have seen the report as you have," Bangalore police commissioner M.N. Reddi said at a media briefing on Friday.
"We have taken note of it and are investigating the matter.
"We are ready to face any threat perception to the city. We have set up a special team to study the report and trace the culprit," he said.
The Shami Witness tweets contained jihadist propaganda as well as information for would-be recruits and messages praising fallen fighters as deaders.
Awww, a fanboi!
More from The Daily Beast, which notes that the outing of Shami Witness has led other keyboard warriors to abandon the field. It isn't kind:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Massoud Barzani
[GatestoneInstitute] "I'm sad that I'm back in the Gaza Strip. I went through happy times [in Israeli detention], where I had food, calm, good work, although I did not receive a salary. Those were unforgettable days where I had delicious food that we don't have in the Gaza Strip." — Rabi, 16, who crossed the border from Gaza and was held in detention for three months before being sent back home.
