Four years ago on September 28, 2000, when Ariel Sharon made his operatic visit to the Temple Mount, no one could have predicted how dire the situation would become so quickly: close to 6,000 dead, many thousands more injured, the construction of the Separation Wall, mass movement restrictions, detention and torture and other forms of violence and racism. What is one of the worst things perhaps in this new reality, which is quite similar to the old reality, is the level of normalization this political climate has taken on in Palestinian and Israeli society. After four years, Am Johal takes stock. Read more about It's the occupation, stupid ! 

On September 7, Raghda al-Assar was at school in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis. After less than hour, she was receiving medical treatment in emergency room of Nasser Hospital after having been struck by Israeli bullets in her head while she was in her classroom listening to her English teacher. Raghda died Wednesday of the critical wounds she sustained two weeks ago. On September 7, Raghda was one of hundreds of Palestinian schoolgirls, dressed in crisp striped school uniforms, crowding the streets of Khan Yunis refugee camp on their way to school. Sami Abu Salem reports from Khan Younis. Read more about Girl's life ended by Israeli bullets 

When Loai’s and Ubai’s mother was born in 1948, her father, Saleem Abu Khaled al Tamimi of Hebron, was in prison for his part in resisting the British plan to partition Palestine. The boys never got to know their grandfather, because he died of a stroke in Ramallah during an altercation with Israeli guards when their mother, a student at Birzeit University then (1969), was being tried because of her activities in the Palestine Liberation Front. She was sentenced to four years in prison and spent a good part of her sentence in Ramleh prison, where her son, Loai (26), is currently being held. Ubay (19) is in Jalboun prison in the north, one of the harshest in the Israeli system. Read more about Prisoner Stories: Loai and Ubai Mohammad Odeh 

Less than a month after being released from prison, Omar al Sa’di was arrested at the Huwara checkpoint . The reserve sentence associated with his previous sentence means that he is guaranteed four years in prison no matter what. Two informers who are currently themselves in Israeli prisons have accused him of being the leader of a group opposing Israel, they themselves confessing to being part of that group. He is also accused of trying to fire in the air near an Israeli settlement and of trying to attack Israeli collaborators. His parents have a document in Hebrew specifying these accusations, but because they can’t read the language, they know only roughly where the names are in the document of those accusing him. Read more about Prisoner Stories: Sleiman Sari al Sa'di's sons 

Ahmad Zeidan was only fifteen when his brother Mohammad (20) was arrested and imprisoned by Israeli forces in April of 2002. In his pocket, he keeps two passport-sized photos, one of his brother Mohammad and one of his cousin. Nicknamed Abu al-Baha’, Ahmad’s cousin (pictured right in one of Palestine’s ubiquitous martyr posters) was shot dead at the age of 22 in May this year in one of the frequent Israeli invasions of Jenin refugee camp that Israeli forces make to assassinate Palestinians accused of “terrorism” against Israel. In his billfold, Ahmad also keeps a letter written to the family by his brother from prison letting them know what had happened to him. It is penned carefully on a fragile silver-backed paper wrapper. Read more about Prisoner Stories: Mohammad Hussnee Zeidan 

On September 10, after an Israeli incursion into the northern Gaza Strip that had left at least five dead and dozens wounded, I went to a Gaza City cemetery to look for a young gravedigger. I had met Mossab, a slim 18-year-old boy from Gaza City, a week earlier. He had long ago dropped out of school to pursue a profession that appeals to very few people, but which is catering to more and more youngsters in Gaza. In the city’s Sheikh Radwan cemetery, Mossab, along with several other boys, was employed to dig, guard and take care of the graves of the men, women and children that pack the graveyard. Read more about In Gaza, the dead bury the dead 

The government says it is an extremeley difficult task. Those illegal hilltop outposts are just so impossible to remove. Each time IDF tries they are met with such violent resistance from settlers, as one may have seen it on evening news. Even if they are an obstacle to peace, required for the removal under the Road Map and other agreements, and even at the cost of international criticism, those outposts are left to grow, further unabling a viable peace. “If the government says can’t do it, why don’t I show it’s easy and possible?” Dror Etkes, Coordinator for the Settlement Watch Project at Peace Now thinks outloud, “I will pick up a trailer from an outpost and dump it in front of the Ministry of Defense, to make my point.” Shirabe Yamada reports. Read more about "Dismantlement 101: Introduction to removing an outpost"