Gaza’s landscape is dotted with piles of rubble of bombed out buildings, the twisted iron and aluminum of destroyed factories, once green fields reduced to sand and dirt by Israeli tanks, apartments with two-meter holes in the walls and toppled minarets of mosques turned to ruins. “But as devastating as bearing witness to the destruction was, it was the absurdities of the total blockade of Gaza imposed by Israel and Egypt that really affected me,” writes Stephanie Westbrook upon returning from Gaza. Read more about Gaza frozen in time 

A friend recently told me that the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once said that every night before he fell asleep he would walk the streets of his stolen city of al-Birwa in his mind. More than one Palestinian here has told me that they have a similar nighttime routine, except when they close their eyes they float up from their beds, through their windows, beyond the lights of the patrolling Israeli ships and armored trucks, and out into the night sky, free to roam the world. Emily Ratner writes from the Gaza Strip. Read more about I'll fly away 

For more than six decades, the al-Buhairi has family lived on and farmed their land near the boundary with Israel, to the east of Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Last week Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets warning individuals not to set foot in a 300-meter-wide (1,000 foot) strip of land on the Gaza side of the border. The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari reports from the occupied Gaza Strip. Read more about Gaza farmers brave Israeli bullets 

“My career has always been a challenge for me — simply ‘to be or not to be’ — especially under such very difficult circumstances,” says Etimad Wshah. Wshah lives in the Jabaliya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, and is one of a small number of women filmmakers in Gaza. Since 1994 she has trained other women filmmakers at the Palestinian Women’s Affairs Center in Gaza City. Rami Almeghari reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about In Gaza, women filmmakers find strength behind the camera 

The Abu Halima family’s agony began when the family was taking shelter from Israeli missiles in the foyer of their two-floor home on 11 January when two white phosphorous bombs struck. The father of the family, Saad Ala Abu Halima was instantly killed along with his three sons, Abed Raheem (14), Zaid (10) and Hamza (8), along with his only daughter, one-year-old Shahed. Eman Mohammed reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about A family lost in white phosphorous shelling 

The scene of Mahmoud Jilu, four years old, rolling his ball with friends doesn’t seem weird at all until you see where he is playing. Mahmoud runs after the ball into a backyard full of graves forming the cemetery where his family has lived since they can remember. The six-member Jilu family are all jammed together in a tiny house with one bedroom and a small space for the kitchen with a tomb next to it. Read more about Living amongst the dead in Gaza 

“Only if we return to our homeland, can there be peace. But as long as [Israel] keeps us refugees, we have no choice to resist them now and for generations to come, until we are back in Beir al-Saba,” said 75-year-old Suleiman Abu Jazzar in his home in the Brazil refugee camp in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. Rami Almeghari reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Palestinian refugee family demands to return home 

More than 700 Palestinian workers in Gaza who suffered on-the-job accidents inside Israel used to receive monthly disability payments from Israeli employers. But in January 2009, workers stopped receiving these payments as the Israeli courts decided that Israeli insurance companies are no longer liable towards Palestinians living in what the state has declared a “hostile entity.” Rami Almeghari reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Gaza laborers injured in Israel left to dry