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.

MIDEAST: ‘Poetic Justice’ in Jerusalem

President Barack Obama has made plain he means to deconstruct Israel’s 43-year-old grip on East Jerusalem. But, for all Washington’s pressure, Israel seeks to tighten its hold on the occupied part of the city.

MIDEAST: Belgian Bank Financing Illegal Settlements

Dexia, a major Belgian-French bank, is continuing to finance Israeli authorities in the occupied Palestinian territories almost a year after it indicated that it would cease providing loans to illegal settlements.

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.

MIDEAST: Obama Said to Mull Israel-Palestinian Peace Plan

Amid still-unresolved tensions over Jewish settlement expansion in East Jerusalem, two major publications reported Wednesday that President Barack Obama is seriously considering proposing later this year a U.S. peace plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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.

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.

EGYPT: Civil Society Sidelined Ahead of Elections

Egypt's ruling party is taking measures to restrict the work of non-governmental organisations ahead of crucial parliamentary elections.

MIDEAST: U.S. Poll Reveals Sharp Partisan Divide

Eighty-one percent of U.S. citizens say the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has hurt their country's interests, according to a new poll, although a sharp partisan divide increasingly frames the issues.

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: Israel Hovers Between War and Peace

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current visit to Washington is not just about trying to smooth over the crisis which has rocked U.S.-Israeli relations over the past fortnight.

MIDEAST: Clinton Acknowledges “Daylight” Between US and Israel

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered reassurance Monday to the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee that the Barack Obama administration's "commitment to Israel's security and Israel's future is rock solid," while echoing the words of warning issued by Gen. David Petraeus and Vice-President Joe Biden.