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 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 

During Israel’s three-week-long offensive on Gaza launched on 27 December, the Israeli army used internationally banned weapons according to foreign military and medical experts. Israel used American-made white phosphorus shells in populated areas across the Gaza Strip. Yousef Al-Helou reports from the Gaza Strip. Read more about White phosphorus not forgotten in Gaza 

The continuing shortage of cooking gas due to Israel’s border closures, along with the destruction of at least seven major poultry farms during the recent military siege, has made an important food item scarce and unaffordable for most of the Strip’s 1.5 million residents. The Electronic Intifada correspondent in Gaza, Rami Almeghari reports. Read more about Once plentiful, chickens now rare in Gaza