ISRAELI WATER THEFT: Mohammed Abbas is sick, with chronic diarrhoea. Not for the first time.

He and his family live in a Palestinian village with no running water, no sewage system, and no prospect of getting either any time soon.
Watching her son, eyes closed, clutching his stomach on a mattress on the floor, his mother, Sunna, told me she is desperate.
Water tanker, Faqua village, West Bank
Faqua residents complain they have [...]

Peace Now: ‘Natural growth’ – Israel’s trick for West Bank expansion

Figures released recently by the Central Bureau of Statistics cast doubt on government officials’ claims of housing shortages for young couples living in West Bank settlements – the central argument Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to present to U.S. President Barack Obama against freezing settlement construction.
Figures for 2006-07 reveal that the housing shortage in settlements [...]

Israeli colonialization: Israel to rethink rail route that cuts through Palestinian land

The Civil Administration’s planning bureau will hold a hearing on Monday on a Peace Now demand that the planned route of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv train be altered so as not to cut into privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank.
At present, the plan involves turning Palestinian farmland into access roads for a tunnel and [...]

Living Next to Settlers – “They Have Done Nothing for Palestinians in 20 Years”

Last week the Hebron team (Simphiwe, Elaine and I) made it a priority to visit the Da’ana family in Wadi al-Hussein. We soon discovered what it was like for an isolated Palestinian family to be located beside a settlement. The Da’ana family (17) live on an isolated farm land with no Palestinian neighbors. Their land [...]

“B’tselem Engangers Arabs” (the landtheifs barks and threatens)

…
This is how the look, smell and barks.
The colonalists. The people with “jewish identity” that say that a peace organisation in the “democracy” of Israel is hateful and starts unrests. And even would enganger arabs! Which arabs? Oh, yeah the palestininans the local population. Ofcourse they are an ideology motivated organization. [...]

Shady land deal unfolds from West Bank to California strip mall

The transformation of a piece of West Bank land from a Palestinian field into a Jewish settlement has roots in an unlikely place – Orange County, California – and in a document that a man supposedly signed more than four decades after the date of his death.
Unfolding from the West Bank’s terraced olive groves to [...]

FEATURE: Dome of the Rock on Vodka Bottle in Israel, By Mohammed Mar’i

Dome of the Rock on Vodka Bottle in Israeli
By Mohammed Mar’i
(Arab American Media Services. Permission granted to republish.)
(Ramallah, Occupied Palestine)– While the Muslims in Palestine were pleased by the arrival of the renovated pulpit (minbar in Arabic) of Salah Ad-Deen of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, an Israeli import and export company distributed vodka bottles [...]

Despite everything, Hebron is still Palestinian

The Pachao family was out Saturday for a Sabbath walk. Sarah and Yosef pushed the baby carriage, and the little ones, Ahuva, Gershon, Hananel and Noah, crowded into the carriage or walked behind it. Why did you come to live here, I asked? “Because of the good air.” The Pachaos, who are members of the [...]

Hundreds of ultra-orthodox Jews pray at Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem

Bethlehem – Ma’an – Dozens of armored buses brought hundreds of ultra-orthodox Jewish worshippers to pray at Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
Tour buses lined the streets on the western side of the seperation wall, and roads were blocked off from Tantur to the Beit Jala (Gilo) checkpoint as hundreds of worshipers [...]

World Bank: Palestinian economy could flourish if Israel eased restrictions

The Palestinian economy has “incredible potential” that could be unleashed if Israel eases restrictions on Palestinian movement, the area’s World Bank chief said Wednesday, a day after a high-level World Bank delegation inaugurated a sewage storage facility in a rare trip to Hamas-ruled Gaza.
It took three years, rather than the scheduled nine months, to build [...]