These days Rami Abdo’s duties include gardening, teaching and caring for his 10-year-old nephew. Abdo, a 30-year-old student from Gaza City, is still waiting along with hundreds of others to attend universities abroad since Israel has closed all of the Strip’s border crossings. The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari reports. Read more about Gaza students still waiting and losing hope 

Aware of the dangers now facing hikers like me, I have, of late, been careful to restrict my walks to tracks which avoid any contact with the settlements. Two recent incidents I have experienced personally I believe illustrate what routine life is now like for us Palestinians in the occupied territories. Raja Shehadeh recounts for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Really living here 

Some might think that I am overreacting about the short trip out of Gaza to a place only two hours away. But I would say to them that for me and so many other Palestinians in Gaza, it is not just a short trip, but rather a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The trip was a window that opened suddenly to allow in the fresh air and joy of life, and one that I may never experience again. Najwa Sheikh writes from occupied Jerusalem. Read more about Seeing the Dome of the Rock 

My son Arab is 14, just past the age that his Jewish Israeli peers are celebrating their Bar Mitzvahs. This ceremony in Jewish culture is a rite of passage that marks a boy’s entrance into the realities and responsibilities of adulthood. And last week, my son experienced something akin to the Palestinian Bar Mitzvah. Bassam Aramin writes from occupied Jerusalem. Read more about The Palestinian Bar Mitzvah 

At the end of my visit they started asking me to take pictures for their brothers, uncles, sons and fathers detained in Israeli prisons for over four months — a picture of a newborn not yet seen by the imprisoned father, one father’s favorite girl and a picture of the detainees’ pictures hanging on the wall to let the prisoners know they are missed, they are celebrated. Philip Rizk writes from the occupied Gaza Strip. Read more about A family under siege 

On Monday 30 June, Gaza was abuzz with the sudden announcement that Egypt would open Rafah Crossing — the only gateway for 1.5 million Palestinians who have been imprisoned here for almost two years — for three short days. Haider Eid writes of his attempt to break out of the prison called Gaza. Read more about Shades of Checkpoint Charlie at Rafah Crossing 

I wasn’t really surprised by the watchdog group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel’s (PHR-I) latest intervention to Israel’s health ministry, in which they accused Israeli doctors of complicity in the torture of Palestinian detainees in Israeli interrogation centers. Indeed, it sounded all too familiar to what I experienced during 550 days of incarceration in a South African prison from 1990 through 1992. Naji Ali writes for EI. Read more about Do no harm: A torture victim remembers