Articles by Sharif Abdel Kouddous

Source: The Nation

Nearly ninety people were killed by Israeli forces today, most of them in one of Gaza’s poorest and most crowded neighborhoods.

Gaza City—>Two small bodies lie on the metal table inside the morgue at Gaza’s Shifa hospital. Omama is 9 years old. Her right forearm is mangled and charred and the top half of her skull has been smashed in. Beside her lies her 7-year-old brother. His name is not certain. It might be Hamza or it might be Khalil. Relatives are having trouble identifying him because his head has been shorn off. Their parents will not mourn them—because they are dead too. read more

Source: The Nation

Precious few political parties have spoken out against the military or its assault on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Khaled Dawoud worked hard to remove Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, from office.

As the spokesperson for the National Salvation Front, a loose coalition of non-Islamist parties and groups formed last November, he was a well-recognized voice of opposition to Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. In the weeks leading up to June 30, Dawoud traveled across the country, helping to drum up support and organize logistics for the massive anti-Morsi protests. read more

Source: The Nation

Syrians fleeing the fighting at home have found themselves targeted amid Egypt’s political upheaval.

Abu Shihab recalls when armed police officers in full riot gear barged into his cramped apartment and led him away in handcuffs, along with a dozen other Syrian refugees. “They were dressed like they were ready for a war,” he says. He stands in the sun-washed courtyard of Masaken Othman, a cluster of cracked reddish-brown residential buildings rising from the dust in Cairo’s desert outskirts. Trash and car tires float in fetid green water seeping from a drainpipe onto the sand. read more

Source: The Nation

With corpses filling Cairo’s streets and both sides vowing to escalate, any glimmers of revolutionary hope have been all but extinguished.

Cairo at night has become a city of silence. Once among the world’s most crowded and raucous nocturnal metropolises, it is now home to ghosts, a place haunted by fear and despair. Never ones to abide by past military-imposed curfews, Egyptians stay indoors after sunset. The night is owned by helicopters roaming the skies, fat army tanks sitting heavily in the streets and bands of men wielding knives, clubs and guns at makeshift checkpoints. The occasional crackle of gunfire rings out, a reminder that the violence has only slowed, not stopped. read more

Source: The Nation

The violent clampdown by security forces has all but ended the possibility of a rapprochement with the Muslim Brotherhood.

In one of the bloodiest days in Egypt in decades, security forces attacked two sprawling sit-ins of supporters of the deposed president, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, shooting dead scores of people and igniting a wave of violence across the country.

Hours after the raids began, Egypt’s military-backed interim president declared a month-long state of emergency, allowing security forces to detain civilians indefinitely and without charge, and imposed a nighttime curfew in Cairo and ten other governorates. read more

Source: The Nation

One year after President Mohammed Morsi took office, millions will march across the country on June 30 to demand his removal from office.

Egypt is bracing for June 30. Anticipation for the first anniversary of the inauguration of President Mohammed Morsi has reached a fever pitch, as millions prepare to take to the streets to demand his removal from office. Fears of a showdown between protesters and the president’s supporters have led people to stock up on food and fuel supplies. The military and police are deploying extra forces and barriers around public buildings and army tanks have reportedly taken up positions outside the capital. read more