Gaza | ST McNeil

Nine Years of Sumud

30 October 2012 by ST McNeil

This article originally appeared in This Week In Palestine Good news hasn’t come often to the Corrie family since March 15, 2003, when their daughter Rachel was killed by a militarised bulldozer. They have pursued justice and accountability ever since, crossing the globe demanding answers from governments and corporations complicit in her death. When the US court system failed them in 2007 in their claims against the company that built the deadly steel behemoth that crushed Rachel, the Corries sued [...]

Categories: Clips, Middle East, PalestineIsrael • Tags: bulldozer, Caterpillar, Cindy Corrie, Craig Corrie, Gaza, Haifa, Judge Oded Gershon, Nakba, Naksa, palestine, Philadelphi Strip, Rachel Corrie, Sumud

Gaza’s River of Excrement

21 October 2011 by ST McNeil

From over-capacity cesspools to a contaminated aquifer, the water and sewage systems of the Gaza Strip are a living nightmare. “Personally I’ve never been so overwhelmed by a smell. You feel that there is something terribly wrong in the air,” said Karl Schembri, communications outreach officer for Oxfam International. There’s something toxic hitting you in the face. There’s no escaping it.” Schembri grimaced with his back to the river of raw sewage otherwise known as Wadi Gaza. “Around 30,000 cubic [...]

Categories: Clips, Middle East, News, PalestineIsrael • Tags: aquifer, Gaza, Gaza tunnels, Hamas, Mediterranean, palestine, Rafah border crossing, waste water, waste water treatment

Tunnel and Pilgrimage

21 July 2011 by ST McNeil

“Ya Hussam, inta baa’rif Rachel Corrie?” I asked the taxi driver last Sunday: Hussam, do you know Rachel Corrie? Sadly, he did not. Dropping the clutch to second gear, we pulled onto the main road running north-south along the coast of the Gaza Strip, from Rafah to Gaza. The sun had risen an hour earlier over historic Palestine and modern Israel. The heat and light was slight. The blue waters of The Middle White Sea, the Arabic translation for the [...]

Categories: Egypt, Middle East, PalestineIsrael • Tags: Gaza, Gaza tunnels, Philadelphi Strip, Rachel Corrie, Rafah border crossing

First shots of Gaza

14 July 2011 by ST McNeil

A few snapshots from the Mediterranean beauty of Gaza City, a port town ravaged by but resilient under brutal occupation. Drones above, missiles below, bullet holes and “stunted” children.

Categories: PalestineIsrael • Tags: Gaza, Gaza port, Mediterranean, sunset

Piss Pride Porcelain

22 June 2011 by ST McNeil

From Seattle to Jerusalem, I’ve pissed in hundreds of urinals. One has time to think in those sixty to six hundred-second leaks: aim, pressure, splash radius, urinal cake odor. If us men are lucky, we get to power-melt leftover ice from the hotel bar. Sometimes these recepticals of our fluid waste are simple troughs of cheap metal. Other times stately affairs of crafted porcelain accomodate our urine streams. On top of most urinals, though, is a clue to American foreign [...]

Categories: Research • Tags: American exceptionalism, American Standard, Cairo, Dahab, Egypt, Gaza, Ideal Standard, Libya, lion fight, palestine, Sinai, toilet philosophy, Tunis, Tunisia, urinals

Revolutionary road

22 June 2011 by ST McNeil

The rough plan, ladies and gentlemen, is to visit three revolutionary zones. Don’t worry, Misrata is not an objective. I am posting this from the Egyptian Sinai’s east coast. Saudi Arabia faded pink moments ago as the sun set over the still untamed sands of the Bedouin desert between Palestine and the land of the pharoahs. After a few days of rest and relaxation (scuba certification and freckle amassing), I will take the nine-hour bus to Cairo. My goal is [...]

Categories: Africa North • Tags: Al-Sayed al-Essawy, Cairo, Dahab, Gaza, Gulf of Aqaba, scuba, Sinai, Tunis

ST McNeil

Environmental Convergence Journalist

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