Ask Saif Abukeshek when he became an online activist, and he’ll give you the same answer as many of his Palestinian peers: after the second intifada erupted, in 2000. That explosion of violence in the occupied territories brought about a tough lockdown on Palestinian mobility by Israeli forces and produced the right conditions for a home-grown, grass-roots activism — frustrated youth trapped inside all day with nothing but the TV and the internet to turn to. Don Duncan reports. Read more about Palestinian youth bring their politics online 

This morning I walked to the Indian Ocean and made salt in defiance of the British Occupation of India. This morning I marched in Selma, I stood down tanks in Tiananmen Square, and I helped tear down the Berlin Wall. This morning I became a Freedom Rider. Ramzi Kysia of the Free Gaza Movement writes from the Gaza Strip. Read more about Freedom Riders on the sea 

Is the Bush administration making quiet overtures towards Hamas? What are the prospects for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and what are Hamas’ views on peace with Israel? Does the Islamist movement support the one-state solution and where does it look to for political role models? Dr. Ahmed Yousef, senior advisor to Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, the leader of the Hamas government in Gaza, recently spoke to The Electronic Intifada’s Gaza Strip correspondent Rami Almeghari about these and other issues. Read more about EI interview: Hamas advisor on talking to the US, Fatah and Israel 

“The Acre incidents” rocked the city from its supposed tranquility — a tranquility that hinged on a tenuous basis. It might definitely be best for everyone if life in Acre does not return to its previous track. It is simply necessary to change the track. But Acre is not alone. There are six other cities like it that are also called “mixed cities,” where strong and deep-rooted Palestinian communities lived until 1948 and where only the remnants of the expulsion remained. Ali Haider comments. Read more about Don't put life in Acre back on track  

I have just emerged from a week-long frustrating experience. It was exhilarating to spend the week in the company of our good guests, friends to whom we owe much. Yet now I am left with a certain bitter aftertaste of disappointment. I am battling an inner feeling of guilt and shame at having failed to communicate to them adequately “the whole truth” about “my” country. Hatim Kanaaneh writes. Read more about Overcoming walls 

Experience of terror and trauma is the norm for children in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially those living in the Gaza Strip. As the Israeli siege creates a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, an entire generation of traumatized children suffers an absence of psychological care. Sameh A. Habeeb writes from the occupied Gaza Strip. Read more about A generation of traumatized children 

GAZA CITY (IPS) - The letter of acceptance that 28-year-old Hazem Hussain got for a business graduate program in a California university once brought joy. Now he does not know what to do with it. He has admission, and a visa to the United States, but the Israelis will not let him leave. “I have tried to get out through every means possible for a year now,” he says. “But I am not able to go.” Read more about Israel targets Palestinian students 

Prevented from producing and competing with Israel’s economy, the Palestinians became forced consumers and this is perpetuated by foreign aid. Effectively international donors foot the bill while Israeli companies profit from the desperate need of an entire population under Israel’s occupation. Foreign aid has done nothing to revitalize the economy, and has only made the Palestinians one of the most aid-dependent populations in the world. Sonja Karkar comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about The pauperization of Palestine 

Burj al-Shemali is located at the edge of Tyre and was established in the early 1950s after Zionist forces expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland. Today some 20,000 people live in the quiet, but fenced-in Burj al-Shemali Camp. More than two-thirds of its labor force work at least part-time in agriculture. Ray Smith writes from southern Lebanon. Read more about Picking oranges the Palestinian way 

On a beautiful sunny day this week, a group from the International Solidarity Movement, a non-partisan grassroots initiative, went to the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun in order to help protect Palestinian farmers harvesting their olive crops from the Israeli army. EI corespondent Rami Almeghari reports from the occupied Gaza Strip. Read more about Harvesting in solidarity with Gaza's farmers 

An underreported factor behind the violence in the northern Israeli city of Acre is how militant Israeli settlers from the West Bank, funded by donors in the United States, have instigated tension in an attempt to reduce the Arab population. The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah analyzes. Read more about Extremist West Bank settlers help stir Acre violence 

Aqaba Mayor Hajj Sami is permanently wheel-chair bound. He was shot three times in the back by Israeli soldiers when he was 16, and one of the bullets remains in his chest to this day. Yet he has tirelessly fought for his community’s right to remain on the land they have owned for generations. Paul Adrian Raymond writes from Aqaba. Read more about A West Bank mayor's struggle 

Like most Israeli youth, at age 18, Rotem Mor readied himself for military conscription. In the army, he was a liaison soldier with foreign armies at the Port of Egypt, but was kicked out of the unit for under-performance. After that, he was a soldier-teacher working with civilians, and spent a year in Jerusalem, working with disadvantaged kids. But he wasn’t happy. Sarah Price writes for EI. Read more about Refusing the occupation: an interview with Rotem Mor 

NILIN, WEST BANK (IRIN) - As the olive harvest gets under way in the West Bank, residents of the Palestinian town of Nilin say much of their land, where their trees are, is off limits because of Israel’s wall. According to estimates by residents, some 5,000 olive trees sit on 270 hectares between the path of the wall and the border of the West Bank with Israel, known as the Green Line. “People depend on this land, especially because they have already lost so much,” said Hindi Misleh, an activist in the village. Read more about Nilin village resists Israel's land confiscation 

RAMALLAH, West Bank (IPS) - An Israeli police commander has called them “provocateurs,” “militants,” and “lawbreakers.” Earlier in the year the Israeli army decided that their presence in the city of Hebron, 30 kilometers south of Jerusalem in the Palestinian West Bank, constituted a security threat and banned them from the city, stating that any member of the organization caught there would be expelled forthwith. Read more about Breaking the silence challenges the Israeli army 

With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert forced to concentrate on his corruption charges, Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, won the ruling party Kadima’s primaries and is hoping to form a new government. The Electronic Intifada contributor Gabriel Ash looks at Livni’s cultivated dovish image in the context of a neo-liberal and colonial Israel. Read more about Livni: the making of an Israeli "dove" 

Once again, the holy month of Ramadan comes to end. Once more people are preparing for the Eid holiday, the feast of breaking the fast. Once more, people think how can they celebrate this Eid. Once more, we ask the same questions: how many checkpoints and roads will be open so that Palestinians can be able to circulate freely from place to place to visit their family and friends? Abdelfattah Abusrour writes from occupied Palestine. Read more about Eid wishes