An Israeli peace activist whose brother was murdered by Hamas in last weekend’s attack is appealing for peace.
Noy Katsman’s older brother Hayim was killed on the kibbutz he had called home for nearly a decade.
Hayim lived in Holit, near the border between Gaza, Egypt and Israel. On October 7, Hamas militants poured into southern Israel and killed more than 1,300 people and kidnapped scores of others, resulting in a ferocious response from the Israeli military.
In the week since the attack, Israel has dropped roughly 6,000 bombs on the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on Earth.
More than 2,200 Palestinians have been killed in a bombing campaign that has already equalled the 2014 war, which lasted between July 7 to August 26.
Israel has told Gazans in the north they had until 4pm on Saturday to move to the south, a near impossible task.
Noy is adamant that Hayim would be horrified by Israel's response.
“I know my brother wouldn't have wanted this,” he said.
Hayim, like Noy, was a peace activist who spent his life advocating for solidarity with Palestinians.
A DJ, he even made playlists in Arabic.
“My brother was an activist for peace and for solidarity,” Noy, 27, told The National.
Noy, who studies anthropology and sociology in Germany, is now calling on Israel to stop its military offensive.
“I want you to keep on what my brother did and fight for peace and not agree to do stuff that will cause more violence and more hate,” he said, appealing to hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
“I beg you, I beg also my government, and the pilots and soldiers, who may be called to go into Gaza. Don’t agree. Protect the area around the Gaza Strip, but don’t agree to go in and kill innocent people.
Noy fears for Gaza’ future and its millions of inhabitants.
“My government wants us to believe that the only way we can handle the situation … is if we kill more Palestinians and we erase Gaza.”
Israel has long had a robust activist community that has increasingly been at odds with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his right wing allies and their like who have helped to whip up a fervour of fear and anger among many Israelis.
Noy has received angry messages from some Israelis for publicly calling for peace.
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It's up to you to go green
Nils El Accad, chief executive and owner of Organic Foods and Café, says going green is about “lifestyle and attitude” rather than a “money change”; people need to plan ahead to fill water bottles in advance and take their own bags to the supermarket, he says.
“People always want someone else to do the work; it doesn’t work like that,” he adds. “The first step: you have to consciously make that decision and change.”
When he gets a takeaway, says Mr El Accad, he takes his own glass jars instead of accepting disposable aluminium containers, paper napkins and plastic tubs, cutlery and bags from restaurants.
He also plants his own crops and herbs at home and at the Sheikh Zayed store, from basil and rosemary to beans, squashes and papayas. “If you’re going to water anything, better it be tomatoes and cucumbers, something edible, than grass,” he says.
“All this throwaway plastic - cups, bottles, forks - has to go first,” says Mr El Accad, who has banned all disposable straws, whether plastic or even paper, from the café chain.
One of the latest changes he has implemented at his stores is to offer refills of liquid laundry detergent, to save plastic. The two brands Organic Foods stocks, Organic Larder and Sonnett, are both “triple-certified - you could eat the product”.
The Organic Larder detergent will soon be delivered in 200-litre metal oil drums before being decanted into 20-litre containers in-store.
Customers can refill their bottles at least 30 times before they start to degrade, he says. Organic Larder costs Dh35.75 for one litre and Dh62 for 2.75 litres and refills will cost 15 to 20 per cent less, Mr El Accad says.
But while there are savings to be had, going green tends to come with upfront costs and extra work and planning. Are we ready to refill bottles rather than throw them away? “You have to change,” says Mr El Accad. “I can only make it available.”
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Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
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