Worldcrunch
Welcome to Wednesday, where Israel carries out first airstrikes on Gaza since the ceasefire in May, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin meet for the first time since Biden’s election and Ronaldo changes Coke into water. Chinese daily Economic Observer also advocates for more open discussion about the real reason why China’s couples are not having […]
Welcome to Tuesday, where deadly warfare erupts in Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Indian COVID variant is “cause for concern,” and NASA gets its hands on some seriously old space dust. Le Monde“s Joan Tilouine also explains how the initial excitement surrounding Beijing’s so-called “Stadium Diplomacy” in Africa has turned. • Israel responds to Palestinian rockets with […]
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.
OneShot — Young boy in the pool, 2013 (©Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR) OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot:
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 […]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/8oLuqXA57xc expand=1] OneShot — Young surfer girl, 2013 (©Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR) OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot:
Basic health care services are hard to come by.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/3vT6lWAXudI expand=1]
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 […]
SPOTLIGHT: PALESTINIAN PRISON LETTER “My release is bound to happen, sooner or later … “ The most charismatic living Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, who has been in an Israeli prison since 2002, offered a rare written exchange recently with Le Monde. Some see the 56-year-old, who was sentenced to five life imprisonments in 2004 for […]
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.
Hamas, the Islamist group that governs Gaza, is now facing a challenge from Islamic State insurgents and growing disenchantment with its leadership.
GAZA — Of the clamors of the world around her, she sees nothing. Neither the walls and watchtowers that enclose the Gaza Strip, nor the destruction brought by the bombs. She doesn’t even see the months-old rubble of the neighboring building. Her only window, barely wider than an arrow slit, looks onto an empty back […]
RAWABI — Qatari flags, Italian kitchens, WiFi in the streets, green public transport, and apartments for 40,000 inhabitants: Welcome to Rawabi, the first Palestinian city built from scratch. Anwar Hussein, a 48-year-old professor at the University of Bir Zeit, is among the first “pioneer” families who, now that Israeli authorities have finally agreed to connect […]
GAZA CITY — It’s easy to imagine his frustration, that of a professional whose fate doesn’t depend on the quality of his work or his willingness to work hard but on political contingencies. Salaheddin Abu Hassira, 50, is an entrepreneur in Gaza’s building sector. It’s a pursuit that, in this Palestinian territory, seems condemned to […]
Images that made the news and caught our eye…
RAFAH — When the wound eases, the real pain begins … This Arab proverb expresses well the profound disillusionment of the inhabitants of Gaza, a week since an open-ended ceasefire came into force. The end of fighting presented by Hamas as a “victory” after 51 days of conflict with Israel has up to now brought […]
GAZA — Days after Israel’s “elimination” of four senior Hamas commanders, the “hunt for traitors” is in full swing inside the Islamic organization. At least 24 suspected “collaborators with Israel” have already been executed, but the hunt continues. The same happened for several weeks in 2009, immediately after Operation Cast Lead. It led to the […]
GAZA — Palestinian human rights organizations have used the truce in Gaza to begin their difficult investigation work on a war that has already killed more than 2,000 people. They are among the few NGOs on the ground while global organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, await permission to enter the enclave, which […]
If you’re ever in Gaza and have the time for a museum visit, pop by the Al-Mathaf Hotel. Here in dusty glass showcases you’ll find treasures on display dating back to the days when this coastal area was still one of the ancient world’s major trade centers. Tempora mutantur (times change) — the wealth of the Philistines is well in the past: Gaza today is about misery, war and death. The Palestinian strip of coastland has become a cipher for an apparently unsolvable conflict. For decades this small scrap of land has been thrown back and forth between powers, administered […]
Military defeat can still be a strategic victory for the Islamist militants of Gaza.
The news, quantified.
An impassioned defense of a fellow Algerian-born writer who dares to think for himself in the face of Arab identity politics and the eternal Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
Israel’s supporters have responded to criticism of the Gaza intervention by asking why similar anger isn’t directed at the toll in Syria. It’s a bogus comparison, for many reasons.
Palestinian Authority President Abbas surprised some by backing Hamas. But it is growing protests among youth in Ramallah that may have the real power to make a change.