CAIRO (IPS) - Almost two months after the attacks on the Gaza Strip, the border area between the battered coastal enclave and Egypt continues to come under frequent Israeli aerial bombardment. Israeli officials say the strikes target cross-border tunnels used to smuggle weapons to Palestinian resistance factions. Read more about Border areas bombed again 

WASHINGTON (IPS) - Scores of Middle East and democracy experts released an open letter to US President Barack Obama Tuesday asking him to focus more of his foreign policy efforts at making reforms in the region, including boosting human rights. Signed by more than 120 academics, scholars, experts and others, the letter said that previous US policy had been “misguided” and “produced a region increasingly tormented by rampant corruption, extremism, and instability.” Read more about Experts to Obama: Political Islam not the enemy 

AL-TUWANI, occupied West Bank (IPS) - “I couldn’t run. My pregnancy was too far advanced and there was nowhere to hide,” said Amna Salman Rabaye, 31, as she recalled the terrifying incident several months ago. Rabaye from the Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Tuwani in the southern West Bank was grazing her sheep when she was assaulted by a security guard from the adjacent illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’on. Read more about Israeli settlers terrorize Palestinian villagers 

As spring sets in early, Israelis have been pouring into one of the country’s most popular leisure spots. Visitors to Canada Park, a few kilometers northwest of Jerusalem, enjoy its spectacular panoramas, woodland paths, mountain-bike trails, caves and idyllic picnic areas. Few, if any, visitors take notice of the stone blocks that litter sections of the park. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Canada Park and Israeli "memoricide" 

OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM (IPS) - As the fires of human misery continue to smolder in Gaza, the situation in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem is emerging as another potentially explosive issue in, and far beyond, the Middle East. The future of the city is considered an issue of prime importance to both Palestinians and Israelis, as well as to their supporters around the world. Read more about East Jerusalem settlements ratchet up tensions 

BEIT SAHOUR, occupied West Bank (IPS) - We’ve been warned she’s a “harsh case.” Hesitantly she enters, a withdrawn smile hidden behind glasses and a canopy of thick black hair. Impassively, she tells her life story — as if it’s about someone else entirely: she’s 19. Since seven, she’s been sexually assaulted by “an influential family relative.” He used to tell her what they were doing was “normal between a man and a woman.” She felt secluded from her own family by a vow forced upon her not to reveal their “little secret.” Read more about Where every day is a woman's day