Palestinian family losing Jerusalem home after five decades 
Mehdi Lebouachera, Agence France Press - "I was married here, I had my five children here and I want to die here," says a defiant Fawzia al-Kurd, determined that Jewish settlers will not drive her family from their home in occupied east Jerusalem. more

 VIDEO: Palestinians Document Settler Violence 
Al Jazeera English - The victim of a beating captured on videotape outside the West Bank city of Hebron has spoken about the day he was set upon by Jewish settlers. Midhat Abu Karsh, a 30-year-old Palestinian teacher was beaten for allegedly setting fire to fields in the area. Nour Odeh reports on how he and human rights groups are fighting back. more

 WATCH VIDEO: West Bank attack filmed 
Tim Frank, BBC - The BBC has obtained footage of Palestinians being attacked close to a Jewish settlement in the West Bank by a group of masked men wielding baseball bats. WATCH VIDEO

 Israeli Settlement Activity in and around the Old City 
PLO Negotiations Support Unit - Illegal Israeli settlement activity in and around occupied East Jerusalem has intensified following the re-launch of peace negotiations between the PLO and Israel at the Annapolis conference in November 2007. New settlement housing units are being constructed in and around the Old City of Jerusalem to form an inner ring in the so-called "Holy Basin", a densely populated Palestinian area, as well as an outer ring around the whole of East Jerusalem. more

 Israel plans Jerusalem settlement 
Laila El-Haddad in Al Jazeera - Israel has announced plans to build 20,000 new settler units on the outskirts of occupied East Jerusalem, prompting condemnation from Palestinians. more

 No one knows full cost of Israel's settlement ambitions 
AP in USA Today - Israel's effort since the 1967 Mideast war to fill the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Jews has grown from the scattered actions of zealous squatters into a network of 142 towns and villages that house nearly 240,000 people. more

 Settlements grow on Arab land, despite promises made to U.S. 
Amos Harel in Haaretz - A secret, two year investigation by the defense establishment shows that there has been rampant illegal construction in dozens of settlements and in many cases involving privately owned Palestinian properties. more

 UN expert: Jewish settlers 'terrorize' Palestinians 
The Associated Press in Haaretz - Jewish settlers are able to "terrorize" Palestinians with impunity, intimidating children on their way to school and destroying farmers' trees and crops, a United Nations expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict said in a report. more

 Israel redraws the roadmap, building quietly and quickly 
Chris McGreal in the UK Guardian - At the northern edge of Jerusalem, on the main road to the Palestinian city of Ramallah, three towering concrete walls are converging around a rapidly built maze of cages, turnstiles and bomb-proof rooms. When construction at Qalandiya is completed in the coming weeks, the remaining gaps in the 8m (26ft)-high walls will close and those still permitted to travel between the two cities will be channelled through a warren of identity and security checks reminiscent of an international frontier. more

 I saw youths with murder in their eyes, I saw a paramedic abandon someone wounded 
Nir Hasson in Haaretz - Someone alerted a paramedic; He wavered for twenty seconds on whether or not to treat Hilal, and during that time one of the attackers yelled to him: “If you treat him, we’ll kill you.” He turned with an embarrassed look and left. The injured man lay, blood covering his face, losing consciousness. more

 One Big Prison: New Report Warns Against Continued Strangulation of Gaza Strip after Disengagement 
B’Tselem - Israel has cut off the Gaza Strip from the rest of the world to such an extent that it is easier for Palestinians in Israel or the West Bank to visit relatives in prison than visit a relative in Gaza. This is one conclusion of the 100-page report that B’Tselem and HaMoked publish today. One Big Prison documents the ongoing violations of human rights and international law resulting from Israel’s restrictions on the movement of people and goods between Gaza and the West Bank, Israel, and the rest of the world. The report also warns against Israel’s attempt to avoid its responsibility toward residents of the Gaza Strip following disengagement. more

 EU: Israel Breaching Road Map 
Al Jazeera - The European Union’s foreign policy chief has accused Israel of breaching the international community’s road map for Middle East peace by moving to expand the biggest settlement in the occupied West Bank. more

 How Much is Enough? 
Khaled Amayreh in Al-Ahram Weekly - As Palestinians agree to a general cease-fire Israel announces it will steal yet more land, reports Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank. more

 Vandals Foul Palestinian village’s Water Supply 
Amira Hass in Haaretz - The Madama village’s spring was deliberately contaminated and its water supply system was sabotaged 10 days ago, village council head Ayed Kamal said Sunday. This is the sixth time in the past three years that the spring, the only source of water of the village’s 1,700 residents, and the water system, has been deliberately damaged. The village is located near the extremist Yitzhar settlement and its outposts. more

 Of Settler Crimes and Media Silence 
Al Jazeera - If Americans appreciated the scale of human-rights abuses committed by Israeli colonists in the occupied territories, they would condemn the journalists who keep them in the dark, a US peace activist says. Kim Lamberty, a member of the Christian Peacemakers Teams (CPT), has told Aljazeera.net on Tuesday that a cruel and criminal practice is largely going unreported: settlers are routinely attacking children on their way to school. more

 Heroism in the Holy Land 
Alison Weir in the San Francisco Bay View - There are a small number of people around the world who exhibit extraordinary courage. An even smaller number commit repeated acts of heroism. San Francisco resident Chris Brown is one of them. On Wednesday morning, Brown, with his colleague Kim Lamberty, was on the other side of the world walking children to school. The children were like any other children – except for one thing. They were scared. Not that they would fail a test, not that their teacher would call on them with a difficult question, not that they would lose a schoolyard game. These children were scared that adults would physically try to attack them. more

 Pursuing the Millennium 
David Hirst in the Nation - In the minds of many Westerners, Muslim fundamentalism has replaced communism as perhaps the greatest single “threat” to the existing world order. From this perspective the Palestinian intifada becomes just another episode in a “clash of civilizations.” For them, there is an intrinsic link between Palestinian “terrorism” and, say, the al-Qaeda bombing of an American warship off Yemen. Almost totally absent from such arguments is any inclination to examine Jewish fundamentalism, or so much as to ask whether it, too, might be a factor in the conflict over Palestine, one of the reasons why it seems so insoluble. more

 Israeli Settlements ‘Still Expanding’ Unchecked 
Jonathan Cook in Arab News - sraeli settlements are still being established in Palestinian territory according to Israeli peace activists; and dismantling operations are, say the activists, a charade, even though an end to their expansion is a key feature of the US-backed road map to Middle East peace. more

Israel Announces New Settlement Plan
Ravi Nessman of AP - Israel announced Thursday it would build 565 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, violating a U.S.-backed peace plan and angering Palestinians already seething over plans to build a security barrier deep into the West Bank. more

 Crossroads of Slaughter 
Gideon Levy in Ha’aretz - Here’s what happened to Hilmy Tmeizi, a toothless old man from Idna, last Thursday: His son, Mohammed, was killed; his grandson, Diya, was killed; his granddaughter’s husband, Mohammed, was killed; his granddaughter, Amira, was wounded; his granddaughter, Mai, was wounded; and his daughter-in-law, Samer, was critically wounded. more

 Euphemisms for Israeli Settlements Confuse Coverage 
FAIR - A number of major American media outlets have adopted a policy of referring to settlements – housing built on land illegally seized by Israel after the 1967 war – as neighborhoods. more

 Israeli Extremists Take Revenge on Palestinians 
Jack Kelley in USA Today - Determined to rid the West Bank of Arabs, vigilante Jewish settlers are shooting and beating Palestinians, stealing and destroying their property and poisoning and diverting their water supplies, Israeli and Palestinian officials say. more