On August 11th, 2006, at a little past 1 PM, around 400 people were marching in a peaceful protest towards the wall in Bil’in, the outskirts of Ramallah. International Solidarity Movement activists, Palestinians, and Israeli Anarchist Activists all join together in this weekly march to the wall in Bil’in. Soldiers surprised us by meeting us half way, they were aggressively stationed inside the village, outside Palestinian homes. Read more about Israeli activist wounded at Wall protest 

Mayor Mansour pointed out that “for more than 40 days, the Shouka rural area has been under Israeli attack, as the Israeli tanks have been firing, by day and night, on the people’s houses and farms.” “The damages are immense; 129 green houses have been destroyed, 58 houses were torn down, while many of our village’s inhabitants have been evacuated to safe shelters at local UNRWA [United Nations Refugee and Works Agency] schools. The water networks in the village have been totally destroyed. Shouka is a traumatized village”, Mayor Mansour confirmed. Read more about Israeli 'Summer Rains' continue to fall hard on Gaza 

Mahmoud Zeidan with Lens on Lebanon conducted interviews with citizens of southern Lebanon after they had been evacuated to hospitals. They and their doctors tell of indiscriminate bombing, the targeting of civilians and the use of unknown and exotic weaponry. Ahmad Ibrahim Hachim: “I lost my wife (31 years) and my three sons (2 years, 8 years and 12 years). My brother lost three sons (10 months, 7 years and 11 years). My third brother lost his two daughters (2 years and 4 years), and I lost my father (67 years). My cousin also lost his wife and five sons.” Read more about I was crying and shouting, but nobody was answering 

Before yesterday, an Israeli missile slammed into an old, unused lighthouse in Beirut, near the Lebanese American University. Debris from the attack found its way to my father’s office building. Inside it was my father. When he left his office, he found a paper on the ground that warned him that he was in danger, and it was due to Hezbollah’s, not Israel’s, rockets. All over Beirut papers fluttered down to the streets, arriving in pieces sometimes (like snowflakes, Ahmad said) - perhaps exhausted from their long journey to the ground from the heights of an Israeli warplane. As the papers neared the streets cars stopped, bodies stooped, and people read. Read more about Beirut, the Incredible Shrinking City 

It has been much harder to write from here than from Lebanon or Syria. And I realize now that this is what I need to tell you all today. Especially today - because the reasons I haven’t been writing are I think an example of the obstacles we face as loving, caring people in this violent, angry world. I cried all day when I arrived in Jordan - for many reasons - but mainly because it felt so removed, so distant not just geographically, but mentally and emotionally, from the devastation being wreaked on Lebanon. Every day since, I have struggled here with the balance that plagues so many of us: How to participate in both our own daily lives and the world that often seems so distant from them. Read more about The struggle for balance 

Everybody was clapping in the street half an hour ago. I looked from my window to find out the reason — the electricity was back. I was sitting in my office, sweating, trying to meet my deadline and to keep the mosquitoes away at the same time. The clapping in the street meant I was able to turn the AC on. But then my neighbors were clapping again. What now? Did Brazil win the world cup? No. It was Al Jazeera. It reported that Israel accepted an emergency cease fire. Well, so we’ll have a break tomorrow? This was what I wrote yesterday night, but I didn’t send it because my colleagues and I were waiting for the UN Security Council resolution to be voted on and we stayed in the office till about 3 a.m. The answer to yesterday’s question came today. Read more about A short-lived celebration