The small Palestinian Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron is home to some of the most violent ideological settlers in the West Bank, who have moved into local homes by force and parade the streets with guns, terrorizing local residents including children on their way to and from school. Unlike most settlers in the West Bank who move to the Occupied Territories because the Israeli government encourages them to do so with financial subsidies and other programs, the settlers in Hebron are here because they believe the city of 150,000 plus Palestinians belongs exclusively to the Jewish people. Read more about War and Irony in Hebron Hilltops 

6 March 2007: We arrived on Sunday to help volunteers from the UPMRC (Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees) deliver food and medical services. Dozens of jeeps and hundreds of soldiers had surrounded the Old City and declared curfew on all of Nablus. Their stated mission was to capture or assassinate eight fighters from Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of the Fatah movement. Meanwhile, the 40,000 residents of Nablus Old City were trapped in their homes, inside a war zone, unable to go to work or school, or even to buy food for their families. Read more about Nablus Invasion Diary I: Occupied Homes and Minds 

7 March 2007: Most of the jeeps pulled out late Monday night, but we all knew they would be back. Israeli officials announced that the operation was not over, as they had not yet achieved their objectives. Typically, the army will withdraw for several hours or a whole day, hoping the wanted men will move around and be spotted by a collaborator working with Israel, and then the army can pounce. Soldiers also remained in occupied houses, where they typically set up hidden sniper nests. Read more about Nablus Invasion Diary II: Human Shields and Medical Obstruction 

13 March 2007: What most struck me about the Nablus invasion wasn’t the killing of unarmed civilians. It wasn’t the obstruction of medical workers and ambulances, or the indiscriminate detention of males, or the occupied houses and curfews. What I will remember for the rest of my life is the steadfast resistance of the people of Nablus. I came to Palestine to document and intervene in human rights abuses and to support nonviolent resistance to the Occupation. As I delivered bread and medicine with medical relief workers throughout the invasion, I wondered if I was really fulfilling my mission. Read more about Nablus Invasion Diary III: Resistance, Hypocrisy, and Dead Men Walking 

The Palo-Dutch Concept Factory has a clear core business: generating ideas, for campaigning in the broadest sense. These ideas are born in Ramallah, Palestine. Generating ideas such as “Send a Friend” (connecting schoolkids in Palestine and the Netherlands), “Sell the Wall” (how to create awareness and involvement of mainstream Dutch with the Wall) and “Palovision”, the Palestinian entry for the Eurovision Song Competition in 2008, a mix of humor, irony, implicit politics and smart use of Dutch media, the Palo Dutch Concept Factory organizes its next workshop in Ramallah on May 4, 5 and 6, 2007. For this workshop PDCF is looking for Palestinian creative minds. Read more about Palo Dutch Concept Factory returns to Ramallah 

On the border between Iraq/Jordan and Iraq/Syria today live hundreds of Palestinian families who fled the US war to find themselves stranded in no-mans land. These families live in tents, in squalor, with little certainty or hope for the future, like their parents and grandparents did after their expulsion from their own homeland in the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) by the Israelis. The Al-Hol, Al-Tanaf, Al-Ruweished and Al-Walid refugee camps in the Iraqi desert are examples of the on-going Nakba that Palestinian refugees face. The fate of the 34,000 Palestinian refugees who once lived in Iraq can be added to the many tragic stories of the US invasion and occupation of that country. Read more about Palestinian Refugees of Iraq 

“I want to be the first Palestinian woman to become president”, declares Suha, an ambitious 15 year-old Palestine refugee student from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. “And what would you do for me?” asks her English teacher Mervat. “I would hire you as my personal advisor!” responds Suha, as the two burst into laughter. Mervat and Suha are two very dynamic and enthusiastic women. Sitting in their school’s playground, Mervat explains, “I used to study in an UNRWA school like this one and I had an English teacher I liked very much, who inspired me to become a teacher”. “When I look at Suha and at the other students I have, I realise relationships have changed. Read more about “Future generations depend on our efforts” 

Three Palestinian women were shot dead in the northern Gaza Strip last month — rumours say it had to do with ‘honour’. The corpses of the women — Ibtisam Mohammad Musallam Abu Qeinas, 31; Samira Tahani Debeiky, 45; and Amani Khamis Hosari, 40 - were found within a 24-hour period in Beit Lahiya and Gaza City, leaving residents shocked. “People are saying it was an honour killing, that the women were of loose morals…” Read more about Violence against women rises in the occupied territories 

We in Canada have our own AIPAC’s, devoted Zionists in bed with our government, and the Christian Right. However, we also have many Palestine solidarity and Arab organizations, as well as grass roots civil groups that have flowered here over the years, and take a dynamic, public position on the occupation, the right of return, the human rights abuses that Palestinians are subjected to, and have wholly embraced the movement to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel. We consider it our mandate to educate the Canadian public on these issues and as well, on our government’s untenable and right wing policies towards the Middle East. Read more about Canadians and the International Boycott Movement