The Apartheid Wall, which began being built in the Occupied West Bank in June 2002, is nearly one third complete. It snakes its way deep inside the West Bank, devouring fertile land into de facto Israeli controlled areas, encircling residential areas, ghettoizing and imprisoning the Palestinian population. The 90,000 people that are already directly affected by the Wall’s 140 km “first phase” are well aware that their entire lives have been shattered, that their incomes, dignity, children’s future, and heritage were uprooted in a matter of weeks or months as bulldozers leveled their lands in order to confiscate and isolate them. Jamal Juma’ comments. Read more about The Wall Is illegal, now we must stop it 

Opening the oral hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of the wall, Palestinian UN representative, Nasser Kidwa, said that the wall will render a two-state solution practically impossible. “The wall is not about security: It is about entrenching the occupation and the de facto annexation of large areas of Palestinian land,” Kidwa said. “This wall, if completed, will leave the Palestinian people with only half of the West Bank within isolated, non-contiguous, walled enclaves. It will render the two-State solution practically impossible,” he told the fifteen judges. Read more about International Court opens oral hearings on the wall 

” I left for Rafah on 11 January 2004 as part of a three-person pilot delegation to the city. We represented the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, an organization founded in February 2003 to establish people-to-people ties between our two communities. Sistering projects are well known in Madison, Wisconsin —a Midwestern University town north of Chicago. Madison has official, City Council-approved sister cities with El Salvador, Nicaragua, East Timor, Cuba, Vietnam, and Lithuania among others. It seemed time, some of us thought, to build ties with a city in Palestine.” Jennifer Loewenstein reports on a trip to Rafah. Read more about Return to Rafah: Journey to a land out of bounds 

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel published its annual report The State of Human Rights in Israel. ACRI witnessed an increase in the scope and severity of human rights violations and an unprecedented rise in injury to innocent Palestinian and Israeli civilians. More than 700 Palestinians and over 200 Israelis have lost their lives, and many more have been injured. Most of the abuses occur not as a result of operational necessity but from vindictiveness on the part of soldiers. Read more about 2003: The State of Human Rights in Israel 

Today, the EU presented its position regarding the hearing at the ICJ. In Strasbourg, Irish Foreign Minister Dick Roche, on behalf of the Council of Ministers, said that Israel must stop building this barrier and he deplored the “regrettably uncompromising” attitude of the Israeli government. The EU’s abstention during the vote at the UN General Assembly did not bring into question the fact that the EU was opposed to the wall, which is a violation of international law. The EU, however, doubted whether bringing the case before the ICJ would be useful. Read more about EU: "Israel must stop building barrier" 

Ten years ago, backed by solidarity groups from all over the world, it appeared that the Intifada had succeeded in forcing Israel to recognize the PLO as sole representative of the Palestinian people. However, with Oslo made many groups felt that Palestinians were in control of their destiny. Today, only few will assert that Palestinians are in control of their destiny? Rifat Odeh Kassis believes we cannot afford to wait until initiatives such as the “Road Map” or “Geneva” are implemented. Read more about Seeking An Organized Solidarity 

The United States submitted a written statement to the International Court expressing its continuing view that the referral is inappropriate and may impede efforts to achieve progress towards a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. The statement emphasized the Quartet-led roadmap as the agreed upon method for moving forward and it urged the Court to give due regard to the principle that its advisory opinion jurisdiction is not intended as a means of circumventing the right of states to determine whether to submit their disputes to judicial settlement. Read more about US rejects ICJ jurisdiction on separation barrier 

In December of last year the United Nations General Assembly decided to request an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on one of the most controversial issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent years, Israel’s construction of a “security wall” in the Occupied Territories. The ICJ, often called the World Court, is based at the Peace Palace in The Hague and was established under the Charter of the United Nations, adopted in San Francisco in 1945. A judgement or an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice carries considerable weight. Shane Darcy explains the process and implications. Read more about Legality of Israel's Wall to be tested before the International Court of Justice 

At the teacher workshop about diary writing the participants say that nowadays Palestinians here are less strict in observing customs like not holding, for a period of up to one year, a wedding party after somebody in the family has passed away. In the past it was unthinkable not to comply but the negative events are so frequent and overwhelming these days that it is simply too unpractical to let one’s social life be prescribed by them. As Mary says, one has to live. Toine van Teeffelen writes from occupied Bethlehem. Read more about The bittersweet lives of Palestine's children