East Jerusalem

Israeli bulldozers demolished the only community center and refuge for Palestinian children in the Silwan neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

An important precedent was recently set that could challenge the entrenched system of impunity for Israeli interrogators who torture and abuse Palestinian detainees.

While the world’s eyes are riveted to the diplomatic arguments over Israel’s settlement facts on the ground, Israel is covertly tightening its grip on Wadi Hilweh and al-Bustan neighborhoods in Silwan in a literally underground fashion. Danny Felsteiner writes from occupied East Jerusalem.

We knew that the threat of eviction against the Hanoun family in occupied East Jerusalem was imminent ever since the first order of this year was served on 19 February. The family had already been kicked out of their home once, in 2002, but it was still hard to imagine that the day would ever come. Jody McIntyre writes from occupied East Jerusalem.

Fawzieh al-Kurd, 57, clad in black, spends her days on a promontory overlooking Tomb of Simon the Righteous in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Enduring the cold of winter and the summer’s blazing sun, she relates her family’s tragic story to visitors from around the world with dignity and resolve. Marcey Gayer writes from occupied East Jerusalem.

In the Sadiyya neighborhood inside the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City is the Jaber family home. There, three members of the Jaber family, as well as the Karaki family, have lived with their parents, and later spouses and children, since the 1930s. Six years ago Israeli police came to the house and told Nasser Jaber that his house no longer belonged to his family. Marcy Newman writes from occupied Jerusalem.

“We are like the roots of a tree. The Israelis may cut us in places, but we will never die. We will not be transplanted from Jerusalem. I will not leave this house,” Maher Hanun tells a crowded room of Palestinian community members supported by Israeli and international solidarity activists. Jeff Pickert writes from occupied East Jerusalem.

I recently visited the al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan, one of the many slated for demolition any day now. The roads into the valley where al-Bustan lies were all closed to Palestinian cars with border police blocking off almost every street. The Electronic Intifada contributor Dr. Marcy Newman writes from occupied East Jerusalem.

On jagged roads, unpaved and covered in mounds of dust, enclosed by a monstrous, towering wall slithering like the venomous snake that it is, I await the bus that will take me to the place I’ve waited to see for far too long. Dina Elmuti writes from occupied Palestine.

Dear Hisam, father of Ahmed, may he rest in peace: I learned of the death of your son, Ahmed Musa, through a one-sentence newsflash on the Palestinian news station Ma’an last Tuesday: “Ahmed Musa, a young boy, was killed by a bullet of the occupying forces in Nil’in.” I was immediately overcome with shock and grief and bitter tears. And above all, that relentless feeling of powerlessness that I know too well.