Two security people just took me and brought me to a car. I asked a couple of times what was going on, but still no one told me. After asking the fourth or fifth time, “Where are you bringing me?” their answer was, “Back to Jordan” I was denied entry into the country and I was deported back to Jordan. The Israelis did not give us a reason why we were denied entry but swiftly ushered my friend and me into a car that would take us back to the Jordanian border. Our passports were stamped with “entery [sic] denied” and therefore useless for any further travel. Furthermore, due to this event, my fiance and I were prevented from marrying as planned. Read more about My Palestinian husband and I cannot live together in the West Bank 

Just days into the start of the new school term most schools in Gaza are closed due to a strike by government workers, including teachers, who haven’t been paid for six months. 750,000 pupils are affected. The strike is open-ended and currently most of the 1,726 public schools in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) are either partially or completely closed. At Azzoun Itmeh School for Girls in the Northern West Bank, only 7 out of 22 teachers turned up for work on Sunday. A similar story is being played out across the region with teachers struggling to get by. Around 70 per cent of all students in oPt are affected by the strikes. Read more about Six months without pay sparks teachers' strike in Gaza and West Bank 

Lens on Lebanon interviews Saida residents: I was affected financially and psychologically. I have no money at all. Psychologically, I have two sons. They don’t want to stay in the country anymore. They want to immigrate now after they realized there is no safe area in Lebanon. My little daughters have a phobia. When they hear any bombs, they just hold in the arms of their mother and can’t move. As for work, there is nothing. Everything has stopped after the Israelis bombed all bridges. I went one month without any job. Now some fishermen have started getting fish from Syria, so I started to clean the fish to survive. Read more about "As long as you are alive, you can regain everything." 

29 August, pre-dawn - It is only now that the gunfire saluting the killed young man has become sporadic and no longer constant, and that the verses of the Koran, chanted in farewell of him, have ceased. But the streets are full; and full too are the hearts of all who had to witness an attack that should only have been imaginable in the darkest back-alleys of some underworld city. By thugs wielding heavy M-16’s. At 9 pm undercover Israeli Special Forces walked down the main street of Ramallah. They wore civilian clothes and Palestinian police-caps. They carried M-16’s as all the police force does. No one looked at them twice. Read more about Killings in Ramallah 

When I began reading the account below of the shooting in Ramallah, I remembered that it was only nine weeks ago that I was walking the streets of Ramallah and I was eating ice-cream at the famour Rucarb ice-cream shop and I was being driven around al-Minara. It all came flooding back to me - those fifteen minutes in the early hours of the morning as my driver, Abu ‘Issa was taking me back to Jerusalem and we were caught in the cross-fire between Palestinian police in riot gear and armed youths. I’ll never forget the painfully hesitant drive up and down narrow streets as shadowy figures ran in and out of shop recesses with guns cocked while others smashed windows. Read more about A Night in Ramallah 

An undeclared Israeli policy is currently in effect. The policy denies entry at Israeli borders to nationals of foreign countries, even those seeking to enter for a short period of time, but especially if they live with their Palestinian spouses and families or are Palestinian expatriate nationals or are working in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt). Israel is arbitrarily turning away scores of such people on a daily basis at the Israeli unilaterally declared and controlled international border crossings to the oPt, separating families, causing unjustified hardships, and impeding development. Read more about Let My People In 

Ongoing violence in the West Bank and Gaza is threatening to disrupt the new school term as more than 1.6 million children prepare to return to classes. The situation is compounded by poverty; teachers haven’t been paid for six months and are threatening to strike while many families can’t afford the cost of fees or uniforms. UNICEF, the Ministry of Education and other partners are launching a Back to School campaign with aid for those most vulnerable. UNICEF’s Dan Rohrmann, says school is a vital lifeline to these children who are living in daily fear and danger – 39 were killed in July alone. Read more about Students face challenges as new school year begins in Gaza and the West Bank 

Activists arrived at the UK headquarters of Carmel-Agrexco before sunrise on Wednesday morning for a day of uncompromising protest. The purpose underlying the protest was clear: to expose an Israeli company that is engaging in continuous unlawful and brutal activity by importing fresh produce originating from illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The method of protest chosen by the activists was to construct two large metal triangular cages at each entrance. Protestors secured their necks to the cages by using bicycle D-Locks for over 11 hours with several supporters close at hand. Read more about UK Headquarters of Israeli Company Blockaded to Gain Ruling on Legality of Trading with Settlements 

Yesterday, I shed my first tears for Lebanon. Yesterday, I visited Houla, a stone’s throw from the Israeli border. Yesterday, I was discovered by Zainab Fawqi-Sleem - a young, Lebanese woman who was killed in Houla, alongside her sister-in-law, Selma, on July 15th. Zainab is but one of over 1,300 innocents killed in this war, but she is the one who found me. On October 31st, 1948, in one of the few massacres of the Nakba to occur inside Lebanon, proto-Israeli militas seized the town of Houla, setting off bombs and burning down several houses. There’s a memorial to the massacre in the center of town, not far from homes smashed flat by this current war. Read more about For Israel's Security: Zainab Fawqi-Sleem and the Question of Lebanon 

22 August 2006 - Yesterday, groups of Jewish activists across the U.S. protested continued Israeli military aggression in Lebanon and Palestine. Echoing a similar action that took place in Boston on August 1st, protesters staged die-ins, hung banners above freeways during morning and evening rush hours, and locked themselves down outside of zionist institutions. In New York, a group of more than 20 Jewish protestors staged a “Die-In” during morning rush hour outside Penn Station, unfurling large banners and lying down on the ground to demand a cessation of continuing Israeli military aggression in Lebanon and Palestine. Read more about Jews in NY, San Francisco, Philadelphia stage coordinated protest