MIDEAST: Palestinians Rebuild With Mud

Jihad el-Shaar is pleased with his mud-brick house in the Moraj district of Gaza. The 80-square metre home is a basic one-storey, two-bedroom design, with a small kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, made mostly with mud and straw.

Q&A: ‘We Eat Hatred Here’

Beit Daniel is an Israeli pluralist religious organisation promoting coexistence between Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land. Executive director Rabbi Meir Azari speaks here to IPS about the war in Gaza, the importance of compromise, and the moral dilemmas of Israel.

MIDEAST: Environment Emerges as a Major Casualty

Countless fruit groves across the Gaza Strip are now gone, entire farms bulldozed. The remains of thousands of destroyed homes emit toxic asbestos, while dilapidated infrastructure dumps raw sewage into the Mediterranean Sea. An already deepening environmental crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip has been further compounded by the recent war.

MIDEAST: 60,000 Palestinians at Risk in Jerusalem, UN Warns

A report published Friday by a United Nations agency has warned that the problems facing the people of Silwan, who are facing eviction from their homes, are replicated throughout East Jerusalem.

ENVIRONMENT: Israel Stripping West Bank Quarries

Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din is taking the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), the Israeli civil administration and a number of Israeli mining companies to court.

MIDEAST: A Former 'Terrorist' Speaks Out

A former high-level Palestinian resistance fighter, who spent years on the run from Israel's security forces, has just been appointed to the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs, and made honorary theatre director.

MIDEAST: Hamas Gaining International Legitimacy

Delegations from the rival Fatah and Hamas organisations have again failed in Cairo to bridge their differences meant to usher in a Palestinian unity government, but this has in no way slowed inroads which the Islamist movement has been making to increase its international legitimacy - much to Israel's concern.

MIDEAST: Tunnels Become a Lifeline

Pick-up trucks speed westward on the Barth highway that flanks the Israeli border in Egypt's North Sinai region, stacked high with cartons of petrol. They are headed "for Gaza", the Bedouin residents of Barth village say – through the tunnels that burrow under the Egypt-Gaza border and are filling Gaza's aid gap in the aftermath of Israel's deadly assault on the territory.

EGYPT: Market Crash Crushes the Poor

Egyptians facing economic hardship know how tough it can be to put food on their table. Now they have also learned the cold, hard reality of the capital market.

EGYPT: Dubious Claims Spark Row With Hizbullah

Egyptian authorities announced earlier this month the discovery of a Hizbullah "cell" allegedly planning to carry out violent operations in Egypt. Although Hizbullah chief Hasan Nasrallah insists the group was only tasked to assist the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, the government has used the episode to launch a blistering media campaign against the Lebanese Shia resistance group.

MIDEAST: Gaza Resistance Destroys Fatah Faction

The recent onslaught against the Gaza Strip - and Israel's failure to achieve its military objectives there - left Palestinian resistance group Hamas politically stronger than ever. Concurrently, it dealt a possible death blow to the faction within Fatah led by strongman Mohamed Dahlan, long known for its closeness to Israel.

MIDEAST: Iran Hands Israel a Gift

Just when it seemed that the international community was gearing itself up to put pressure on the new Israel government to engage the Arab world and the Palestinian Authority seriously on peace, Iran's president hijacked the moment. But, in again lashing out against Israel, he handed the Israeli prime minister a whip of his own with which to question the merit of dialogue with Iran which the Obama Administration has been promoting.

ISRAEL: ‘If You Don’t Know, It Didn’t Happen’

Even though atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers have surfaced and the appointment of a right-wing government diminishes the chances for peace in the Middle East, no left-wing Israeli is taking to the streets.

MIDEAST: More Doors Closing Than Opening

Israel is digging in its heels. Government officials said Wednesday that Israel does not intend to cooperate with the upcoming United Nations investigation into whether Israel and Hamas both committed war crimes during the recent Gaza war.

MIDEAST: ‘Israelis Prepared for Violations’

After the internal investigation into the misconduct of Israeli soldiers in the course of the Gaza assault was closed suspiciously fast, a brief overview of publications by army officials, published months before the start of the war, suggests the reported misconduct was policy and not coincidence.

MIDEAST: West Bank a Time Bomb Waiting to Explode

Tension between Israel and Palestinians is rising sharply as reflected in a number of increasingly bloody and violent confrontations since Israel's devastating war in Gaza at the beginning of the year.

MIDEAST: Aid Rots Outside Gaza

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of aid intended for the Gaza Strip is piling up in cities across Egypt's North Sinai region, despite recent calls from the United Nations to ease aid flow restrictions to the embattled territory in the wake of Operation Cast Lead.

MIDEAST: Animal Farm Finds a Palestinian Stage

"Intifadah", scream the animals as they chase Jones from the farm. Strobe lights flash and loud music blares as the packed audience sits captivated, eyes trained on the stage below.

EGYPT: Where World War II Now Targets the Indigenous

It has been more than 65 years since the guns fell silent, but the World War II desert battlefields where Allied forces defeated Rommel's Afrika Corps are still claiming lives. Each year the casualty count grows, as Bedouins planting crops, herding livestock and collecting scrap metal are killed or maimed by rusting landmines and munitions hidden beneath the baking sands of Egypt's North West Coast.

Q&A: ‘Ignore Jerusalem, At Everyone’s Peril’

A new spate of demolitions of Palestinian homes by the Israeli authorities near Jerusalem's walled Old City, plus resuscitated plans for a new major Jewish settlement building project on the outskirts of occupied East Jerusalem, threaten to spark fresh tension between Israelis and Palestinians.

MIDEAST: Arabs Strap Up for Netanyahu Era

Many Arabs are seeing the emergence of Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel as the death knell for the already moribund peace process.