News Update: Asylum for Iraqi Christians, traumatized Israeli soldiers and two Gazan surfers

I have already mentioned the plight of Iraqi Christians here.

An interesting piece of news has been posted to the German news website heute.de concerning the recent suggestion of the German Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang Schäuble, to offer special asylum to Iraqi Christians. He plans to discuss this with his European colleagues.

Then we will give advice on how we, as Germans and as Europeans, in the alarming situation facing Iraqi refugees—especially those amongst them of Christian faith— can responsibly provide help through admittance to Europe

Full report in German here.
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A separate article reports about former Israeli soldier Yehuda Shaul, who has joined a group called “Schovrim Shtika”—“Breaking the Silence”. This group encourages traumatised soldiers to come into the open about their experiences during their three-year military service, experiences which they cannot reconcile with their consciousness. Some examples:

Young soldiers, who shoot wildly around themselves, and thereby hit an 18 year old Palestinian. Soldiers of the Kfir-Brigade who stick a fan heater into the face of an arrested Palestinian and film this with a mobile phone. A Palestinian, who had to get undressed at a check point and be beaten.

Yehuda is a religious Jew and now takes Israelis and tourists on trips to Hebron, a Palestinian village with Jewish settlement, in order to show the consequences of the violence.

The full report is here. The video report is here. Everything's in German, I'm afraid!

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Finally, an interesting and touching report about the plight and dreams of two surfers from the Gaza strip. Video report here , here.