Victor Kattan, a correspondent for Arab Media Watch and occasional contributor to EI, was at the International Court of Justice in the Hague during February 2004 to report on the hearings to determine the legality of Israel’s West Bank Barrier, dubbed the “Apartheid Wall” by Palestinians. On the day the ICJ gives its advisory opinion, 9 July 2004, EI reprints Victor Kattan’s Court Diary from the hearings that took place from Monday 23rd February to Wednesday 25th February 2004. Read more about Court Diary from the February 2004 ICJ Hearings 

Seventeen individuals have joined in on the hunger strike protesting Israel’s Apartheid Wall. Toufic Haddad writes from day five of the solidarity tent in Ar Ram. Despite the heat wave (36 centigrade) there is a good atmosphere in the tent, and the hunger strikers - though visibly more weary n are in high spirits. Today there were questions regarding Dr. Azmi Bishara’s health. Bishara was the first to go on hunger strike, but he is also a kidney transplant receiver (via his brother). Since there haven’t been so many kidney transplant receivers who have gone on hunger strike, his doctors are especially worried. He is bravely pressing on. He never refuses interviews and is always active. Read more about Window into the Hunger Striker Tent Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall 

It was 2am Thursday morning, when I went to sleep, After following the news as usual, I was having a very tough migraine. I have experienced these tough migraines for a while because of the stress I have working as a journalist. I keep the walky-talky next to my head when I go to sleep, so that I can hear anyone calling me with urgent news, even while I’m having this migraine and at this time in the morning. I fell asleep, before someone began shouting on the walky-talky at 6am, and I jumped from bed to answer. His voice was deeply sad, and he was hardly able to talk, and he said “Fadi… Fadi… Ten Palestinians were just killed in Beat Hanoun village”. Read more about One Morning in Palestine 

Recently Israeli President Moshe Katsav publicly stated that human rights are basic rights and cannot be based on obligations set by the state — in other words, these rights are inherent to being human and cannot be taken away or limited by the state. In Israel where the desire for the security of the state and its citizens is used as a pretext to limit the advancement of human and civil rights both in Israel and the Occupied Territories, this is enlightened thinking coming from the head of state. Am Johal reports. Read more about The State Cannot Legislate On Matters Of Love 

“Israel simultaneously extends its protective wall outwards so as to encompass and protect all the members of a globally distributed ethno-religious population that it views as its ‘concern.’ Like the United States, which, with the demise of the Soviet Union, is able to celebrate its power to defend its citizens and its interests everywhere, Israel has, with its victories over the antagonisms against which it established itself, become unrestrained in its will to sovereign power both within and beyond its borders.” Anthropologist Glenn Bowman of the University of Kent examines the socioeconomic contexts and the cultural underpinnings of Israel’s Apartheid Wall. Read more about About A Wall 

Arriving in al-Bea’neh the next day, I saw the old man whose home had been torn down beginning to replant new olive trees. Despite the beatings, there was this sense of optimism, regeneration and a sense of the community coming together to respond in a productive way. In the village council office, they discussed the brutal Israeli policy of home demolitions over Arabic coffee and Gauloise cigarettes before setting off on a 2,000 person demonstration with the residents. On the table were tear gas canisters used by the police the day before which were clearly marked that they had been manufactured in the United States. Read more about Anatomy of a Home Demolition 

It had been planned meticulously. The initiative came from the Al-Ram municipality — a huge demonstration including as many Israelis as could be convinced to come on the weekend before the Supreme Court’s decision over the fate of Al-Ram. But, from how it went it seems that somebody up there decided that it was not in their interest to have today an orderly demonstration of Palestinians together with Israelis. That, so short before the Supreme Court was to give its decision, it was much better to transform it into something in which “anything could happen.” Read more about Report of the June 26 Al-Ram demo against the Wall 

Mary is called by a student from Gaza who since three years is unable to complete his final year at Bethlehem University due to the impossibility to travel out of Gaza. Her heart beat leaps after hearing the familiar voice of the student she knew so well. He tells her: “But we are better off than you, at least we have the sea here!” In Bethlehem the American actor Richard Gere watches some performances from Suzy’s students who had made some good drama plays based on their recently published Intifada diaries. Gere also visits a group of young children making drawings of the sea. The teacher tells Gere that the sand and the shells stuck on the drawings are really from the sea at Tel Aviv, a sea which the children cannot visit. Read more about View on the Sea