MIDEAST: Could Have Danced All Siege

"I'd planned to have my wedding party on a Thursday night, when more people could come, and stay later. But because the Dabke dancers weren't free then, I held it on a Tuesday," says Mohammed Ghronaim, 27, from Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

MIDEAST: Treasure House Under Threat

Few outside of Gaza would consider its history much beyond the decades of Israeli occupation. But Gaza is a historical treasure house. Many of those treasures are now in Israeli museums, and those that remain are becoming difficult to preserve due to the Israeli siege.

EGYPT: Gag Tightens on Media Ahead of Elections

Media watchdogs see the "invisible hand" of the ruling party behind a string of firings and resignations that have removed some of Egypt's most prominent government critics from their soapboxes just weeks before parliamentary elections.

MIDEAST: This Peaceful Position Takes Courage

A former captain in the Israeli Air Force, previously an ardent Zionist who lost many members of his family in the Holocaust, has been labelled a psychopath and denounced by many Israelis for the moral stand he has taken against the Israeli occupation.

MIDEAST: Earning a Living in No Man’s Land

Crossing through the metal-caged tunnel that leads from the Israeli side of the border into northern Gaza towards the Palestinian checkpoint, several groups of young Palestinian men and boys can be seen scavenging through piles of rubble.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/: U.S. Jews Increasingly Hawkish on Iran, Sceptical of Obama

U.S. Jews, who, next to African Americans, have constituted the minority most supportive of Barack Obama, are growing more sceptical of his performance and increasingly hawkish on Iran, according to a new poll released Tuesday by the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

EGYPT: Cornered Bedouin Play the Border Card

Since June, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has witnessed an unusual flurry of local crises. The peninsula shares a border with both the Gaza Strip and Israel, and is inhabited mostly by the Bedouin tribe.

MIDEAST: But the Coffins Do Come In

Samir Tahseen Al-Nadeem died after waiting 35 days for an exit permit for treatment for his heart condition. He was 26. The medicines he needed could not get in. But the coffins do.

DEATH PENALTY: Arab Abolitionist Movements Seek Unity

Rights activists have called for nascent abolitionist movements of the Middle East and North Africa to coordinate their efforts to press Arab regimes to end capital punishment.

MIDEAST: Documentary Probes Death of a Peace Activist

The 2003 death of young peace activist Rachel Corrie, crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer, inspired worldwide press coverage, demonstrations and debates – and eventually at least two plays and a number of songs.

MIDEAST: Arabic Comes to Jewish Schools

"As a democracy Israel aspires to complete equality of all its citizens," said Dr. Shlomo Alon, head of the education ministry's Arabic and Islam education division as he launched a programme at the beginning of the new school year to make classes in Arabic compulsory in all Jewish public schools. But just a month later, the commitment to "complete equality" looks like it's taking a back seat.

LEBANON: Tourism Planted at a Barbed Border

The contours of a modern medieval castle stretch along the Wazzani River delineating Lebanon's border with Israel. A few metres away from the United Nations-mandated Blue Line, on Lebanon's first line of fire with Israel, a tourism project at an estimated cost of 20 million dollars is slowly taking shape.

MIDEAST: Israeli Police Given Protection for Killing

A peaceful morning is interrupted by the sounds of an Israeli helicopter circling overhead -- often a sign of trouble on the ground. Later Sunday the news broke -- a Palestinian man was shot dead in the village of Issawiya by Israeli paramilitary border police as he tried to enter Israel in search of work.

Peacemaking Raises Identity Fears

The fate of the just resumed Palestinian-Israeli peace-building efforts is being kept under a tight wrap by all parties. So far, so good.

MIDEAST: Israel Deports Peace Laureate

Irish Nobel Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire was deported from Israel Tuesday after spending more than a week in detention at Tel Aviv Airport as she attempted to fight the deportation order.

MIDEAST: U.S. Scrambles to Save Peace Talks

With a key Arab League meeting delayed until Friday, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is scrambling to keep one-month-old direct Israeli- Palestinian peace talks alive.

MIDEAST: Syria in the Catbird Seat

As the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama struggles to salvage Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Syria is well positioned to benefit no matter the outcome.

MIDEAST: Hungry in Gaza, More and More

"Sometimes, for a day or two we don't even have bread, nor flour to make bread. There's a store nearby that, when we are truly desperate, lets us take a bag of bread or something simple, on credit. I owe them a lot of money for the food I've brought from them, but I still can't pay them."

Europe Offers Tax Benefits for Illegal Settlements

Organisations raising funds to benefit the Israeli army and illegal settlements in the West Bank enjoy tax-exempt status in Europe, an IPS investigation has shown.

FBI Raids Seen as Political Retribution

Recent raids by federal agents on the homes and offices of peace activists are being viewed by civil libertarians and civil society groups as further proof that the U.S. is morphing into a "surveillance state" where the right to privacy and other constitutional protections are being quietly whittled away.

MIDEAST: Riots Grip East Jerusalem

Tension, the twisted carcasses of gutted vehicles, buses with smashed windows, smouldering dumpsters, streets riddled with rubber-coated steel bullets and empty cartridge cases, teargas, and air thickened with black soot from burning tyres marked the beginning of the fifth day Monday of continuous rioting in East Jerusalem.