In the Sadiyya neighborhood inside the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City is the Jaber family home. There, three members of the Jaber family, as well as the Karaki family, have lived with their parents, and later spouses and children, since the 1930s. Six years ago Israeli police came to the house and told Nasser Jaber that his house no longer belonged to his family. Marcy Newman writes from occupied Jerusalem. Read more about Ethnic cleansing, one home at a time
BETHLEHEM, occupied West Bank (IPS) - As the wreckage from Israel’s recent siege on Gaza continues to smolder, international civil society organizations are assembling this week in Switzerland to address Israel’s crimes of military occupation and racism. But any discussion on Israel’s actions in Palestine will be excluded from the formal framework at the Durban Anti-Racism Review Conference in Geneva Monday. Read more about UN Protects Israel from racism charges
AL-ARISH, Egypt (IPS) - Hundreds of thousands of tons of aid intended for the Gaza Strip is piling up in cities across Egypt’s North Sinai region, despite recent calls from the United Nations to ease aid flow restrictions to the embattled territory in the wake of Israel’s 22-day assault. Read more about Aid rots outside Gaza
By the time we arrived in Sur Bahir, a Palestinian village near Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on the afternoon of 7 April, it was calm. At 6am, some 2,000 Israeli border police and special forces and other personnel descended on the village to demolish a wing of a house that belonged to the family of a Palestinian construction worker who allegedly went on a rampage while operating a bulldozer last July. Marian Houk reports. Read more about Punitive house demolitions as "deterrence"
“For this is what the Palestinian does: we wait. For an answer to be given, for a question to be asked … for exile to a better place and for return to the only place that knows us …” Laila El-Haddad writes about her deportation from Egypt while attempting to go home to Gaza. Read more about The quintessential Palestinian experience
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - John Ging, head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, has urged Israel to ease aid flow restrictions that are having a devastating effect on the 1.5 million inhabitants. Ging says the amount of aid being allowed into Gaza at present is “wholly and totally inadequate. It’s having a very devastating impact on the physical circumstances and also the mindset of people on the ground,” Ging told IPS. Read more about Gaza needs more aid
GAZACITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - Over 150,000 Palestinians in Gaza (around 10 percent of the population) are struggling without tap water as a result of the damage caused to wells, pipes and waste water facilities during the recent 22-day Israeli offensive that ended on 18 January. Read more about More than 150,000 Gazans still without tap water
KHANYOUNIS, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - “They’re always shooting at us. Every day they shoot at us,” says Alaa Samour, 19, pulling aside his shirt to show a scar on his shoulder. Samour said he was shot on 28 December last year by Israeli soldiers positioned along the border fence near New Abassan village, east of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip. Read more about In Gaza, farming under fire
“We are like the roots of a tree. The Israelis may cut us in places, but we will never die. We will not be transplanted from Jerusalem. I will not leave this house,” Maher Hanun tells a crowded room of Palestinian community members supported by Israeli and international solidarity activists. Jeff Pickert writes from occupied East Jerusalem. Read more about Sheikh Jarrah residents organize in the face of mass house evictions
A decision by Israel’s state-owned railway company to sack 150 Arab workers because they have not served in the army has been denounced as “unlawful” and “racist” this week by Arab legal and workers’ rights groups. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about "Hebrew labor" lives on as Israel Railways fires Arab guards