WorldcrunchStay updated with comprehensive news on the Palestinian Territory from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Palestinian politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Gaza, Ramallah, Palestinian history, and cultural events.
In response to the attack by Hamas, Israel promises to eradicate the group, but what does this really look like? With the promise of a high toll in human lives and the complex network of the Gaza Strip, an operation to retaliate against Hamas may be even more difficult that one may think.
Hamas’ unprecedented onslaught has hit Israel at a moment of weakness. But the attack could unite a divided Israeli society against a common enemy — and finally end the terrorist organization’s rule.
Iran denies direct involvement with the Hamas assault on Israel, even if it has given it its full backing and praise, and has offered support over the years. The specter of Israel striking Iran is driving fears that the war is bound to spread across the region.
There will be a before and after to October 7, 2023, so unprecedented and traumatic have the events of the last 48 hours been for Israel, followed by massive retaliation. We can already draw several lessons from this.
The signing of the Oslo Accords 30 years ago was followed by a failure that set back the very idea of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. A look back at this historic episode and the lessons we can learn from it today.
Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo joins a handful of former military and political leaders who have decided to break the taboo on using this infamous word, as a result of the political radicalization of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition.
Israel’s military operation in Jenin is the latest escalation of bloodshed. Once again, the language of violence has prevailed because there is no political solution on the horizon.
In the West Bank, tensions are at a new high after the death of a 15-year-old boy during a clash between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters. The incident, coupled with the growing influence Israel’s far-right political figures and an intensified use of force, is pushing the region to a critical point.
A Palestinian has died from a hunger strike in an Israeli prison, exacerbating the cycle of violence in the region. Israeli’s protesting Benjamin Netanyahu”s right-wing government have little to offer to resolve the eternal crisis of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Praise in the West has been heaped on the popular protests in Israel that have halted undemocratic judicial reform proposed by the Netanyahu government. But this supposedly noble fight for democracy doesn’t apply to 20% of its citizens, not to mention the policies carried out in the Occupied Territories.
In a speech in Paris, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, denied the existence of the Palestinians, sparking angry reactions in Ramallah, Amman and Brussels. But Israel’s extreme right is not afraid of provoking a violent crisis with the Palestinians.
By challenging Israel’s constitutional system and launching a crackdown on the Occupied Territories, Benjamin Netanyahu is playing a high-stakes game opposed by half his country and the country’s allies. It can’t last much longer.
After forming a governing coalition with right-wing extremists, will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu face a chill in relations with the West? The reshuffled geopolitical cards offer a fair share of paradoxes.
Right now, according to a joint survey of Israelis and Palestinians, hopes for a peaceful solution of coexistence simply don’t exist. The recent spate of violence is confirmation of the deepest kind of pessimism on both sides for any solution other than domination of the other.
… and it runs much deeper than Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government.
Less than a week after being sworn in for the sixth time as Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu was defied by a highly charged visit his far-right coalition ally, Itamar Ben-Gvir, made to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, that has enflamed the entire Muslim world. Netanyahu has a choice to make.
On the same day that Bethlehem’s Mayor Anton Salman inaugurated the Christmas holiday season earlier this month with an impressive fireworks display and tree lighting in the town square, residents of the West Bank city’s three refugee camps — Aida, Dehaishe and Jibrin, also known as Azza Camp — continued their daily protesting against the Palestinian Authority. The protests, which have included burning tires and blocking roads, aim to gain the release of several Palestinians arrested by Palestinian security forces for waving banners of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine during the funeral of 14-year-old Amjad […]
In the latest Palestinian uprising, the greatest accomplishment has been to demonstrate the actuality of liberation.
Even as other Muslim leaders were treading more carefully on the Palestinian question, Turkey’s leader knows no better way to express his global ambitions than a frontal assault on Israel.
For fear of losing legitimacy to Hamas, supporters of the ruling Fatah party have joined the riots that have left at least 19 people dead since Friday.
Also known as al-Khalil — the friend — the historic, contested city is steeped in enmity and overshadowed by Israel’s commanding military presence.
A Manifesto for Tali’at, a new movement seeking to put the feminist cause at the center of the battle for Palestinian rights.
The UN culture and patrimony organization’s new chief, Audrey Azoulay, a former French culture minister, shares her vision for reviving UNESCO after the U.S. and Israel have announced their withdrawal.
RAFAH — It has been one month since the Rafah Border Crossing was opened, marking the longest window in which Gaza residents have been permitted to leave and reenter their besieged territory since 2013. What was initially purported to be a four-day opening was extended on May 17, when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that […]
-Essay- CAIRO — I dropped her off at the first of many stops that make up the long journey back to her home, and I went back to mine. We both like “homemaking;” we hoard the smallest of things, collect candles, eat what we grow – both of us are lovers of life, even fighters […]
Basic health care services are hard to come by.
There is one land crossing out of Gaza, Rafah on Egypt’s border, and it is usually shut, confounding the life and travel plans of thousands of Palestinians.
Having spent 22 years in Israeli jails, Sinwar knows his adversary — and appears open to negotiate, with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
GAZA CITY — Their world doesn’t extend much beyond this piece of sidewalk that never seems to change. Glued to their white plastic chairs, Khaled, Mohammed and Abdel Rahman spend their time talking about everything and nothing while fiddling with their smartphones. There’s no 3G coverage, so their only connection to the rest of the […]
GAZA CITY — Escaping the besieged Gaza Strip, often described as “the world’s largest open-air prison,” is a nearly impossible dream for many of its two million residents. But 24-year-old Mosab Abu Toha has found a way to free himself — through books. “Freedom is a state of mind. With books, you’re liberating yourself by […]
In southern Gaza, A “Hamas Hollywood” is starting taking shape, just in time for Ramadan.
-Essay- BETHLEHEM — Some journeys begin with a sigh. An old acquaintance of mine, an artist, wrote on Facebook this week about a Banksy exhibition that was about to open in a shopping mall in the Sharon area, north of Tel Aviv. She complained that the cost of an entry ticket was 90 shekels (about […]
This is the third and final installment of a three-part series “Couchsurfing In Palestine.” Read Part 1: Keeping Secrets and Part 2: Where Are You From? -Essay- I meet Saber in a cafeteria in central Jenin, just after noon. He welcomes me with a vigorous hug, the kind that people give to friends they haven’t […]
This is the second installment of a three-part series “Couchsurfing (And Keeping Secrets) In Palestine.” Read Part 1 here. -Essay- We wake up at 9 a.m. “I need to go to work,” Ehab tells us, implying that Samuel (the American who was sharing the room with us) and I also need to go. Quickly, we […]
-Essay- There must be an infinity of good stories to tell about the bus from Jerusalem to Ramallah. At its starting point, the streets are well kept, like in a first-world country, and the white stone buildings standardized. At sunset, they give the Israeli city a golden yellow hue. When you reach Ramallah, the dusty […]
Born around the time of the 1993 Oslo Accords that were supposed to usher in Middle East peace, these young people are well-informed, disillusioned and very, very angry.
After Syria, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere, ISIS tries to take root in the Palestinian enclave governed by the Islamists of Hamas. Internecine conflicts get ugly fast.
Wareef Kaseem Hamdeo, a chef from Aleppo who found refuge from the Syrian civil war in Gaza, became a local celebrity after opening a Syrian restaurant there.
TEL AVIV — Despite its ongoing problems, the Palestinian economy has recently shown significant signs of recovery. It’s particularly evident after a period of deep recession, economist Yitzhak Gal notes in an article published by a Tel Aviv University journal. The Palestinian Authority has faced the threat of collapse and, with it, the destruction of […]
A decade after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, many sites have been reduced to ruins. Others are now symbols of Hamas’ mission to build a new state.