An underreported factor behind the violence in the northern Israeli city of Acre is how militant Israeli settlers from the West Bank, funded by donors in the United States, have instigated tension in an attempt to reduce the Arab population. The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah analyzes. Read more about Extremist West Bank settlers help stir Acre violence 

Aqaba Mayor Hajj Sami is permanently wheel-chair bound. He was shot three times in the back by Israeli soldiers when he was 16, and one of the bullets remains in his chest to this day. Yet he has tirelessly fought for his community’s right to remain on the land they have owned for generations. Paul Adrian Raymond writes from Aqaba. Read more about A West Bank mayor's struggle 

Like most Israeli youth, at age 18, Rotem Mor readied himself for military conscription. In the army, he was a liaison soldier with foreign armies at the Port of Egypt, but was kicked out of the unit for under-performance. After that, he was a soldier-teacher working with civilians, and spent a year in Jerusalem, working with disadvantaged kids. But he wasn’t happy. Sarah Price writes for EI. Read more about Refusing the occupation: an interview with Rotem Mor 

BARCELONA (IPS/Terraviva) - Palestinian villagers drink unsafe agricultural water rather than trusting water provided by an Israeli company, says Buthaina Mizyed, who has worked in Arraneh village near the conflict-laden West Bank city of Jenin. The reason the Palestinians avoid the water from a station in the nearby village of al-Jalameh is that it smells of chlorine. Read more about Where water leaves a bitter taste 

NILIN, WEST BANK (IRIN) - As the olive harvest gets under way in the West Bank, residents of the Palestinian town of Nilin say much of their land, where their trees are, is off limits because of Israel’s wall. According to estimates by residents, some 5,000 olive trees sit on 270 hectares between the path of the wall and the border of the West Bank with Israel, known as the Green Line. “People depend on this land, especially because they have already lost so much,” said Hindi Misleh, an activist in the village. Read more about Nilin village resists Israel's land confiscation 

RAMALLAH, West Bank (IPS) - An Israeli police commander has called them “provocateurs,” “militants,” and “lawbreakers.” Earlier in the year the Israeli army decided that their presence in the city of Hebron, 30 kilometers south of Jerusalem in the Palestinian West Bank, constituted a security threat and banned them from the city, stating that any member of the organization caught there would be expelled forthwith. Read more about Breaking the silence challenges the Israeli army 

In August, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, the international watchdog organization, asked three Israeli companies to respond to a report by an Israeli non-governmental organization that protested the treatment of Palestinian workers at West Bank settlement industrial parks. EI contributor Adri Nieuwhof reports. Read more about Palestinian workers exploited at West Bank settlement factories 

Once again, the holy month of Ramadan comes to end. Once more people are preparing for the Eid holiday, the feast of breaking the fast. Once more, people think how can they celebrate this Eid. Once more, we ask the same questions: how many checkpoints and roads will be open so that Palestinians can be able to circulate freely from place to place to visit their family and friends? Abdelfattah Abusrour writes from occupied Palestine. Read more about Eid wishes