29 August, pre-dawn - It is only now that the gunfire saluting the killed young man has become sporadic and no longer constant, and that the verses of the Koran, chanted in farewell of him, have ceased. But the streets are full; and full too are the hearts of all who had to witness an attack that should only have been imaginable in the darkest back-alleys of some underworld city. By thugs wielding heavy M-16’s. At 9 pm undercover Israeli Special Forces walked down the main street of Ramallah. They wore civilian clothes and Palestinian police-caps. They carried M-16’s as all the police force does. No one looked at them twice. Read more about Killings in Ramallah 

When I began reading the account below of the shooting in Ramallah, I remembered that it was only nine weeks ago that I was walking the streets of Ramallah and I was eating ice-cream at the famour Rucarb ice-cream shop and I was being driven around al-Minara. It all came flooding back to me - those fifteen minutes in the early hours of the morning as my driver, Abu ‘Issa was taking me back to Jerusalem and we were caught in the cross-fire between Palestinian police in riot gear and armed youths. I’ll never forget the painfully hesitant drive up and down narrow streets as shadowy figures ran in and out of shop recesses with guns cocked while others smashed windows. Read more about A Night in Ramallah 

The Occupying State of Israel has decided that I have been living with my family and two daughters long enough. After being given a one month tourist visa when I entered through the Israeli border to reach the Palestinian areas (which is the only way to enter), the Israelis have responded to my request for a three month extension by saying one more month would be more than enough. Not only that, but they were kind enough to relieve me from the humiliation and agony of requesting another extension to remain with my family by hand writing, in Arabic, Hebrew and English, LAST PERMIT, on the visa. Read more about The silent transfer: Israel says I've lived with my family long enough 

As I walked into one of the largest food processing plants in the central Gaza Strip, the first thing I noticed were two workers sitting idle in the ice-cream production area of the plant. I arrived during working hours, but all the machines were completely stopped. The factory was silent, the silence was overwhelming. The workers, Ibrahim and Hassan, were sitting idle in a corner - not because there is no desire in Gaza for ice cream, but because the Al-Awda factory, for which both workers work, is no longer able to produce ice cream, due to the electricity outages in the Gaza Strip. Read more about Electricity in Gaza: Another Victim of Israeli 'Summer Rains' 

My wife tapped me on the shoulder, saying, “Wake up and take Mohammad. I’ve fed him and changed his diapers, but he won’t go to sleep. I’m too tired to hold him.” Somehow, I caught all of that despite the fact that I haven’t had three hours of sleep. I opened my eyes slowly. My wife had the light on her side of the bed on. It was dim, but enough to annoy my sleep-hungry eyes. But we were lucky to have electricity, a rare commodity since the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza power station 10 days earlier. My three-week-old son was in his bed, starting to wind up for a bout of crying. Read more about 2:30 AM in Gaza 

In wintertime, we are used to having heavy rains sometimes in some places, while in other places nearby, there is no rain at all. You know why, simply because a cloud might be somewhere else. In Palestine, our climate is arid, dry - normally we only have rain in winter. But this summer, for the first time ever, we have been experiencing “summer rains”. Since June 27, they have been falling very heavily, with a few brief pauses when the cloud moved north to Lebanon, a region with a climate very similar to Gaza. This very dark cloud has moved back to Palestine, where people had just begun to lift their heads after the first deluge. Read more about A moving dark cloud 

Mayor Mansour pointed out that “for more than 40 days, the Shouka rural area has been under Israeli attack, as the Israeli tanks have been firing, by day and night, on the people’s houses and farms.” “The damages are immense; 129 green houses have been destroyed, 58 houses were torn down, while many of our village’s inhabitants have been evacuated to safe shelters at local UNRWA [United Nations Refugee and Works Agency] schools. The water networks in the village have been totally destroyed. Shouka is a traumatized village”, Mayor Mansour confirmed. Read more about Israeli 'Summer Rains' continue to fall hard on Gaza 

On 3 August, United Nations humanitarian agencies issued a report on the deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip after six weeks of Israeli siege. The report noted, “UNRWA is currently sheltering 1,345 people from 289 families in four schools in the northern district of Jabalia. Almost all are refugees, fleeing the relentless shelling of the eastern edge of the neighboring town of Beit Hanoun and the area around the Al Nada housing estate in Beit Lahia. In addition to shelter UNRWA is providing the families with daily food parcels and medical supplies.” Read more about Photostory: Refugees forced from their homes by Israeli shelling 

On Tuesday, August 1st, Palestinians and some Americans held a protest outside of the American consulate in East Jerusalem, protesting America’s massive political and financial roie in the assault on Lebanon. There were no physical or verbal exchanges between protestors or police. A police jeep arrived with back up. Suddenly, about 15 police crossed the street to the protestors quickly in a column and began shoving everyone down the hill. They immediately became violent with the protestors, shoving them, aggressively using batons and horses. Read more about Photostory: Israeli brutality at the US Consulate in Jerusalem