MIDEAST: Fighting Settlers’ Impunity and Immunity

The outer stone walls of the unused 12th century Ayyubid mosque in the Israeli centre of the city carried the black scars of attempted arson and hatred. "Price tag", the signature read.

ISRAEL: Togetherness Takes Wings

Hasn't anyone dreamt once of taking refuge under the shelter of a bird's wings, coiled up in its feathers, catching a bird's eye view of what looks from above like paradise?

MIDEAST: Life Without Water a Growing Threat

"Taking our water is not like taking a toy. Water is life, they cannot play with our lives like this," says Maher Najjar, deputy general director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) of the recent Israeli threat to cut electricity, water and infrastructure services to the occupied Gaza Strip.

OP-ED: How About an Israeli Destruction Freeze?

Much was made of what many in the media described as a "confrontation" between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama over the building of illegal Israeli settlements (or colonies) in Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Stepping Towards Nuclear-Free Middle East

Representatives from over 65 organisations and countries convened in Amman, Jordan last week in an effort to lay the groundwork for the United Nations' goal of creating a Middle East without nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

Arab Spring Set to Music

The ability of artists to lyrically articulate the growing rage amongst disgruntled youth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has seen the emergence of politicised rap as a hidden weapon during the region's Arab Spring.

ISRAEL: ‘Don’t be Right, be Clever’

Is his reticence vis-à-vis the Palestinians justified? Has his unsympathetic view of the convulsions gripping the Middle East conquered the world's leaders? Is he right about Iran's nuclear intentions?

Most Israelis Favour a Nuclear-Free Middle East, Poll Shows

A clear majority of Israeli Jews would support a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, even if it meant that Israel too would have to give up its stockpile of nuclear weapons.

U.N. Says Syria Death Toll Above 4,000

The United Nations says the death toll in Syria’s nine-month-old uprising has reached "much more" than 4000, characterising the situation as a civil war.

ISRAEL: Eritreans Flee From Dictatorship to Detention

Standing across the street from the American embassy in Tel Aviv, more than 200 Eritrean asylum seekers chanted "Yes to justice! Yes to humanity!", and demanded international intervention to stop torture camps in the Egyptian Sinai. Protests by African asylum seekers in Israel are growing, in the face of increasingly tough policies by the Israelis.

Egyptians Cast Ballots in Post-Mubarak Polls

Egyptians have started casting their ballots in the first parliamentary elections since former president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in a popular uprising earlier this year.

Arab Women Seek a Place in the Spring

As several countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) elect bodies to write new constitutions, women are looking to expand their rights through legislation.

MIDEAST: Guarding Aggressors Against Victims

Ahmed Qaraeen walks with a limp, more than two years after he was shot twice, in the hip and left knee, by an Israeli settler near his home in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan.

ISRAEL: Not When Desert Is Home

"Anyone who lives sees, but he who moves sees more," a local Bedouin proverb has it. Caught in a web of roads and fences, electric cables and pylons, closed military training grounds and trails of Air Force jets, Bedouin Israelis have long been reduced to a half-hearted life of immobility.

EGYPT: Military More Repressive Than Mubarak

Egyptians hoping for greater freedoms and less police brutality after the fall of president Hosni Mubarak say the military council that has ruled in his place has carried on the ex-dictator's brutal legacy, and in some cases exceeded it.

TURKEY: Erdogan Apologises to Kurds for Mass Killing

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has issued the first official apology for a bloody military campaign that killed thousands of Kurds in southeast Turkey in the late 1930s.

Bahrain Rights Report Released Amid Clashes

The head of a special commission in Bahrain has said authorities used torture and excessive force against detainees arrested in a crackdown earlier this year.

Cairo Clashes Cast Doubts over Egypt Vote

Protesters calling for Egypt's military to hand over power have beaten back a new raid by security forces to evict them from Cairo's Tahrir Square after more than 48 hours of violence in the heart of the Egyptian capital.

ISRAEL: Women Push Back Into Public Space

They're looking at you "uncensored". Posters of women by women have recently multiplied on the holy city walls. "Women on billboards are back in Jerusalem," they proclaim defiantly.

Raids in Syria as Pressure Mounts on Assad

Syrian activists say troops have made sweeping arrests in the flashpoint province of Hama as President Bashar al-Assad faces a growing challenge to his rule.

Crowds Vandalise Arab Embassies in Syria

Crowds supporting President Bashar al-Assad have vandalised at least two Arab embassies in the Syrian capital Damascus as Arab League foreign ministers gathered in Rabat to discuss formalising their suspension of Syria from the league.