More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule. The common perception in public, political, legal and media discourse is that two separate regimes operate side by side in this area, separated by the Green Line.

IN AN ERA when the cause of Palestine has suffered multiple setbacks, and when the Palestinian national movement is at a low point of disunity and strategic incoherence, it is heartening that an initiative launched by Palestinian civil society has achieved resounding global success in the face of fierce opposition by the Israeli state and its supporters.

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Between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2019, Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP) documented 108 cases in which Palestinian children arrested by the Israeli military were held in isolation for two or more days during the interrogation period. The average duration of isolation in this data set was 14.3 days. Nearly 40 percent, 43 children, endured a prolonged period of isolation of 16 or more days. While mainly studying adult prisoner populations, numerous scientific sources indicate that after 15 days “some of the harmful psychological effects of isolation can become irreversible.”

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This report is the product of a joint project by Yesh Din, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) and Breaking the Silence. Most of us feel safe in our homes. As night falls, we turn out the lights, close the doors and gather inside with our families, safe in the knowledge that within our four walls, we are protected from the world outside...

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The deterioration of the socioeconomic conditions in the Gaza Strip due to Israel’s unilateral imposition of 13 years of closure and blockade has led an alarming number of child residents to undertake dangerous emigration routes out of the Strip in search of better living conditions and the chance at a dignified life. Al Mezan’s reporting shows that a sense of desperation is leading children to risk their lives by attempting to cross the Israeli-implemented and enforced buffer zone. This report focuses on the arrest and abuse of those children, in particular 91 child victims who tried to cross the perimeter fence into Israel between 2015-2019.

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On July 2, 2020, Jibril Rajoub, member of the Fatah Central Committee, and Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, held a joint press conference to announce joint plans to confront the Israeli annexation plan. The joint statement issued by the two men comes after a rift of more than two years. The statement did not refer to a vision of how to end the split and restore unity after thirteen years of internal Palestinian division. The ability of this meeting and subsequent dialogue to bridge differences between the two sides is unclear. The solutions proposed since the 2011 Cairo Agreement to restore unity have failed to reach the intended goal, in part because of their ambitious goal of restoring full reunification.

Peasant and other rural Palestinian womenin the Gaza Strip play a major role in the economic survival of their families and in the comprehensive development of their communities. Increasingly, however, their ability to fully pursue and participate in agricultural activity and enjoy their economic, social and cultural rights, including those enshrined in the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) and Palestinian law, has been substantially hindered. This is due to Israel’s ongoing 14-year closure and blockade, repeated military bombardments, and Israel’s unilaterally imposed maritime and land buffer zone, also referred to as “access-restricted areas”. In addition, some intra-Palestinian factors have, to a lesser extent, stifled rural women’s attempts to attain self-sufficiency or independence. The number of peasant women in Gaza, who are also referred to as ‘rural women’, working permanently or temporarily and with or withouta salary, was last estimated at 6,425 in 2010.

Tourism has been critical to the Zionist enterprise since the first Zionists settled Palestine. Al-Shabaka policy analyst Halah Ahmad explores the role of tourism, and especially religious tourism, in propagating the Zionist and Israeli-state narratives, focusing on the damaging impacts of Israeli settlement tourism in illegally occupied Palestinian land. She offers recommendations for ethical tourism that promotes Palestinian rights to self-determination.