Gaza City

For years, PalFest has been trying to break Israel’s cultural siege on the Gaza Strip.

Despite common media depictions of Gaza as being under harsh, Islamist rule, Gaza-based Palestinian Christians emphasize the close ties between families regardless of religion.

Sarah, Abdelaziz and Anda have found a welcome distraction from Palestine’s troubles: music. They and 120 other girls and boys are enrolled in the Gaza Music School, a program of the A.M. Qattan Foundation launched in 2008.

An energy crisis is currently hitting the Gaza Strip’s public services hard and could lead to a severe humanitarian crisis if a sustainable solution is not found soon.

Israeli airstrikes early Thursday morning injured six persons, including rescue workers. Meanwhile, area residents say this is not the first time they have been subjected to Israeli strikes.

Gaza City residents in the coastal Hamami neighborhood are outraged after the Gaza government bulldozed their houses to make way for a major infrastructure project.

A married couple, both former political prisoners from the occupied West Bank, recount their years in detention from Gaza, where the husband was deported to following last October’s prisoner swap.

It is a craft that has been passed down from one generation to the next. The al-Mathloums were one of the best-known bamboo furniture-making families in Gaza but now, of his brothers, only Zakariya, the eldest son, is struggling to keep the tradition and the business alive.

Charities are struggling to meet the needs of an estimated 53,000 orphans in the Gaza Strip; more than 2,000 children were orphaned during the 2008-09 Israeli war on Gaza.

On 26 November, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon threatened to cut Israeli electricity, water and ties to Gaza’s infrastructure serving the 1.6 million residents of the Gaza Strip.