MIDEAST: Hamas to Carry Out More Executions

The Hamas authorities in Gaza have vowed to carry out more executions of those on death row despite intense international criticism and condemnation from both Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups.

MIDEAST: Custodial Death Marred Palestinian Prisoners Day

A young Palestinian man died in Israeli custody as hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of villages and towns across the West Bank and Gaza to commemorate Palestinian Prisoners Day on Friday, Apr. 16.

MIDEAST: Gaza Border Tension Sparks Security Concerns

Tension on Israel’s border with Gaza has increased over the last two weeks. A number of rockets hit Israel while ensuing clashes between the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and armed Palestinians left a number of Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers dead.

MIDEAST: Israel Trapped in Nuclear Isolation

As the world grapples with controlling the spread of nuclear weapons, it's a time of complex choices in a Middle East edging between possible confrontation with Iran and possible movement towards Israeli-Palestinian peace.

MIDEAST: Adding Torture to Injury

It was bad enough that Ahmad Asfour was severely maimed by an Israeli drone strike outside his house on Jan. 9, 2009. But, his search for advanced treatment landed the journalism student, now 19, in Israeli prison where he remains.

MIDEAST: Gazans Gassed by Silent Killer

"You feel very sleepy and dizzy. You put your head down and all you want to do is sleep. Everything feels very peaceful, you are not even aware what is happening and if there is no immediate intervention you are dead within minutes," Enaam Abu Nada told IPS.

IRAQ: Election Sets Off New Political Tussle

The March elections have only deepened political divisions, and brought more violence.

MIDEAST: Palestinian Christians Barred From Jerusalem for Easter

Israeli authorities prevented thousands of Palestinian Christians from entering Jerusalem and accessing Christianity’s most holy sites over Easter in an unprecedented clampdown on religious freedom.

EGYPT: Looking Away From the Disabled

Egyptians find it hard to see past Mahrousa Salem's wheelchair, so they look away.

MIDEAST: Fatah Men Face Imminent Execution in Gaza

Nine Palestinians - most of them affiliated to the Palestinian Authority (PA) Fatah movement - face imminent execution by hanging or firing squad in Gaza.

MIDEAST: Israel Gags News on Extra-Judicial Killings

An Israeli journalist remains under house arrest and another lives abroad, after they broke news on Israeli undercover units carrying out assassinations or "targeted killings" of non-combatant Palestinian political opponents.

LEBANON: ‘Roumieh Prison Breeds Criminality Not Reform’

Lebanon’s notorious Roumieh prison, the scene of a stand-off between inmates and security personnel this month, is no stranger to rioting, escapes, corruption and abuse.

EGYPT: Death Sentences Rise With Poverty

Egyptian courts are handing down death sentences with "alarming frequency" as the state attempts to use capital punishment to stem rising crime rates.

MIDEAST: Palestinian Death Penalty Very Much Alive

Last November, Muhammad Al Saba, 36, from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip was sentenced to death by hanging by a military court in Gaza for alleged acts of "treason and collaborating with hostile forces."

MIDEAST: Israel Recognising Obama Means Business

Against all expectations, it's becoming the forerunner of a peace plan. Indeed, it might in the end even surprise the world as Israelis and Palestinians are forced into a peace. Even if, for now, it's shaping up as anything but peaceful.

MIDEAST: Religion Sways Policy, Now in Israel

There was a time when Israel was held in contempt by its neighbours for its over-liberal ways. They felt it did not "belong" in the Middle East.

MIDEAST: ‘Palestinian Life is Cheap’

In early February, 41-year-old Fayez Ahmed Faraj, a father of nine from the city of Hebron, 30 miles south of Jerusalem, in the southern West Bank, was shot dead in his home town by Israeli soldiers after he allegedly tried to stab one of them.

MIDEAST: Israeli Army World’s Most Moral?

Many Israelis like to believe, and the cliché is repeated regularly in Israel, that their army is the "most moral army in the world."

MIDEAST: ‘Day of Rage’ Engulfs Palestine

On Tuesday tens of hundreds of Palestinians of all political persuasions took to the streets, alleys and sidewalks as widespread rioting and protests spread across East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and into Israel proper.

MIDEAST: Israeli Raids Target Children

Three thousand heavily armed Israeli security service forces locked down large parts of the Old City of Jerusalem on Tuesday, as battalions of police fired rounds of tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian protesters in the occupied eastern part of the city. Nearly 40 Palestinians were wounded and treated at nearby hospitals, as 25 were arrested during intense clashes.

MIDEAST: An Unlikely Collision Takes Place

In the middle of last week, it seemed that the old cliché about the light at the end of the dark Middle East tunnel was being confirmed: the U.S. had successfully cajoled both Israel and the Palestinian Authority into beginning to talk again.