MIDEAST: Rising Again After the Assault

Khuza'a is a small farming village perched on a gentle slope east of Khan Younis. Its fertile farmland once produced fruit and vegetables for export to Israel, whose own lush plains are just 500 metres from Khuza'a's centre, and are visible through the town's narrow streets.

EGYPT: Move to End Organ Trafficking

Egypt's parliament is set to review a long-overdue draft law to regulate organ transplant operations. If passed, the legislation could make more human organs available for transplant, and curtail the country's booming organ trade.

MIDEAST: Netanyahu Out of Step With Obama

A day before he enters what some Middle East analysts are calling not the Oval office but the lion's den, Benjamin Netanyahu, re-incarnated as Israel's leader, is determined not to be easy meat but also, on the other hand, not to become a bone in the throat of his host, President Barack Obama.

POLITICS: U.S.-Israel Balance Echoes Tensions of 1991

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Pres. Barack Obama in Washington next Monday, amid speculation that their two administrations may be heading for a confrontation worse than any they have known since 1991-92.

ENVIRONMENT: West Bank Becomes Waste Land

Israel has found a cheap and easy way to get rid of its waste, much of it hazardous: dump it into the West Bank. A few Palestinians can be bought, the rest are in no position to complain.

US-MIDEAST: Lobbies Gear Up Ahead of Bibi-Barack Meet

In the months since U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have taken office, there has been lots of noise made about the relationship between the two men and their respective countries.

EGYPT: Fears Rise Over Spate of Missing Children

A surge in reports of missing children has set off alarm across the Egyptian countryside. The fears are being fed both by reports and rumour.

MIDEAST: ‘Hamas Against Zionist Ideology, Not Judaism’

A founding member of Hamas says he hates all weapons and insists that his organisation is not anti-Jewish.

MIDEAST: Israel Expanding ‘Beautifully’ In Jerusalem

Even as Pope Benedict XVI tries his best during his current Holy Land visit to pay reverence to the attachment of all three monotheistic faiths to Jerusalem, on the ground a less lofty imprint is already furthering Israeli control over the Holy City in a way that could threaten the claims of all but Jews to Jerusalem.

MIDEAST: Families Down to a Meal a Day

Um Abdullah cannot remember the last time she was able to feed meat to her eight children. She does know that for the past week the single meal she cooked for them each day consisted only of lentils. And that on one day, she had received aid coupons from the United Nations, which she subsequently sold to buy tomatoes and eggplant at the local market.

MIDEAST: Who Does Not Target the Media

Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be arrested and harassed by the respective security forces of the divided Palestinian leadership. And from Israel, a belated freedom has come to cover Gaza, but amidst other concerns.

MIDEAST: Pope Failing the ‘Test of Pain’

Before stepping into Jerusalem's interfaith and inter-political Middle East minefields, Pope Benedict XVI had posited himself as a "pilgrim of peace". But, only hours into his spiritual mission, the Pope found himself crashing up against the walls erected by pain - Jewish pain and Muslim pain, the memory of the Holocaust, and Palestinian pain of the continued Israeli occupation.

MIDEAST: Abbas Standing Takes a Fall

Yet another sign of the growing unpopularity of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) was evident on the streets of Ramallah last weekend.

MIDEAST: U.S. Thaw with Syria Hits Stumbling Blocks

U.S. President Barack Obama issued a statement on May 8 calling for the renewal of sanctions on Syria, which were set to expire on Monday. The declaration came at the end of a busy week in which both high-level U.S. officials and the Iranian president visited the Syrian capital, Damascus.

MIDEAST: Assault Leaves Debris in the Mind

Gazans have a colloquial term to describe the buzzing of Israeli warplanes that is an ever-present feature of their lives: zanana.

MIDEAST: Fatah-Hamas Reconciliation Looking Distant

Doubts have arisen about a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation ahead of a new round of talks. The last talks between the two Palestinian factions failed to bridge outstanding differences.

U.S.: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Greatest Threat of All?

A potentially major clash appears to be developing between powerful factions inside and outside the U.S. government, pitting those who see the Afghanistan/Pakistan ("AfPak") theatre as the greatest potential threat to U.S. national security against those who believe that the danger posed by a nuclear Iran must be given priority.

POLITICS: Obama Aide Puts Israel’s Nukes in the Diplomatic Mix

Last month in Prague, President Barack Obama vowed that he would seek a world without nuclear weapons. On Tuesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller spelled out that this policy would apply to Israel, as well.

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.

MIDEAST: Israel Hit by Doubts Over U.S.

Almost a full fortnight before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is received at the White House, and already political nerves here are all a-jangle. Is a showdown with Israel's staunch ally about to materialise?

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.