A good, kind, brave and very funny man was killed on 4 January as he loaded the body of a young civilian killed by the Israeli occupation forces into an ambulance. Emergency medical workers, Arafa Hani Abed al-Dayem (35), and Alaa Ossama Sarhan (21), answered the call to retrieve two friends: Thaer Abed Hammad (19), who was wounded, and his friend Ali (19), who was killed while fleeing shelling by Israeli tanks. Eva Bartlett writes from the besieged Gaza Strip. Read more about I will tell you how Arafa died 

Israel claims to have attacked 1,000 of what it calls “Hamas targets.” Independent media, UN aid officials and human rights organizations have documented that most of these attacks struck private homes, mosques, universities, schools, government buildings, police stations and charities. The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari reports from the besieged Gaza Strip. Read more about Witnesses to Israel's war crimes 

All Palestinian factions have united and are out facing the enemy, using all of their military capabilities that they collectively have. Although these capabilities are incomparable to the military strength exerted by Israel, yet it has made us more certain than ever that Palestinians will fight to the very end to protect their own. Safa Joudeh writes from the Gaza Strip. Read more about Resisting to protect our own 

My family is from Karatiya village a few kilometers away from the Gaza Strip in what is now called Israel. Karatiya is one of the 450 towns in historical Palestine that were cleansed by Zionist militias in 1948, displacing my family along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians. I now live in Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, which is currently being bombarded by Israel from tanks along the border, American-manufactured F-16s in the sky, and from the sea. The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari reports from the besieged Gaza Strip. Read more about Scared but steadfast in Gaza 

In the haze of dust and smoke from the latest F-16 strike, a family self-evacuates. The dispatcher at the Jabaliya Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) receives call after call from terrified residents fleeing their homes. It’s a new year, a new Nakba, and an old scene; Israel is bombarding Gaza once again and the world is standing idly by, sitting on a fence very different from the electrified border fence encaging Gaza, or the separation wall dividing and ghettoizing the West Bank. Eva Bartlett reports from the besieged Gaza Strip. Read more about "They know no limits now" 

“They have made us gather, they have made us recall past days, they have let us feel a warmth that we have long missed amidst life’s troubles which have become so great. So we say simply and ironically, thanks to the Israelis.” Sahar Ali Shaath and more than 20 other family members were forced to flee their house near the Gaza-Egypt border. The Electronic Intifada correspondent reports one Gaza family’s story of constant displacement. Read more about Family flees Israeli fire once again 

Bombing governmental institutions in Gaza has nothing to do with isolating Hamas or weakening the resistance. The Israeli intent seems to be to create what US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called “creative anarchy.” Indeed Israel has always wanted to keep Palestinians living a life of disorder. They want chaos to prevail in the Gaza Strip. Dr. Akram Habeeb writes from the besieged Gaza Strip. Read more about "Creative anarchy" in the Gaza Strip 

This morning I went with some friends to visit the Block O neighborhood in the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. While we were in one of the houses we planned to visit, my phone rang. It was a friend from Gaza City. He was asking about something. Suddenly I heard the sound of an explosion on his end. At the same time I heard an explosion in Rafah too. Fida Qishta writes from besieged Gaza. Read more about "Do these traumatized children have rockets?"