Ayman Talal Quader is a blogger from the Nuseirat refugee camp located in the middle of the Gaza Strip. On his blog titled “Voice From Gaza,” Aywan chronicled eyewitness accounts of the war and the continuing siege of the territory as well as his own attempts to leave Gaza in order to further his education in Spain. Although classes start on 8 February, he has yet to receive approval from the Egyptian government to travel to Cairo for his flight to Spain. The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre recently spoke with Ayman in Gaza. Read more about Fighting for an education in Gaza 

Nazareth-born filmmaker Elia Suleiman is one of the darlings of Cannes and stands out from the pack of contemporary Palestinian filmmakers for his unique style of filmmaking based on sewing together a series vignettes, silence — an emphasis on visual storytelling versus dialogue, and deadpan comedy found in often grim humor in the lives of everyday people living under the tyranny of what he calls a “pathetic occupation.” Sabah Haider recently interviewed Suleiman for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about "A different kind of occupation": an interview with Elia Suleiman 

After the 1967 war the value of the kibbutz — instrumental in defining territory for the Jewish State of Israel — as a frontline force had become obsolete. The then burgeoning settler movement soon came to replace the kibbutz as a central colonizing body. Occupying Palestinian land and cultivating it to be inhabited by exclusively Jewish communities, the strategies of settlers are not much different than early kibbutzniks. Carmelle Wolfson writes. Read more about "Redeeming" the land: from kibbutzniks to Hilltop Youth 

OCCUPIED GAZA STRIP (IRIN) - Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza made homeless by Israel’s 23-day military assault on the Gaza Strip which ended just over a year ago, are still in tents and damaged buildings; cold weather and recent flash floods have exacerbated their plight, say aid workers and the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA. Read more about Floods bring more misery for tented communities in Gaza 

The Israeli military recently dropped hundreds of leaflets warning Palestinian residents from the village of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip not to travel within 300 meters of the border — the distance of Israel’s so-called “buffer zone.” In response, local activists marched to and nonviolently demonstrated inside the “buffer zone” against the illegal action. The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre recently spoke with demonstration organizer Saber Zanin. Read more about "Together we can end this occupation" 

Atef Abu Saif took his grandmother’s stories of Jaffa to heart. These memories and these stories are the only treasure and wealth of the refugee. They are the sole inheritance for the children of the dispossessed generation. Memories of what once was. Stories of what ought to have been. Marryam Haleem writes. Read more about "I was supposed to be born in a villa by the sea"