“I suddenly remember that some twenty years ago, in the 1980s, the Israelis forbade the Palestinians to even color the Palestinian flag, let alone to hoist it in the streets. The flag was considered a danger to public order. During the first Intifada Israeli soldiers forced Palestinian citizens to paint over Palestinian flags that covered the walls of the streets. Mary still remembers those days very well. Painters sometimes circumvented the prohibition by showing a Palestinian salad containing the colors of the flag: black and green in the olives, red in the tomatoes, and white in the cheese. Or women’s embroidery containing those colors.” Toine van Teeffelen reports from Bethlehem. Read more about Flags in Palestine 

Following my departure from the bridge, I chatted with my aunt in the taxi and she told me personal news, then started talking generally about the situation in Palestine. The route we were taking to Arrabeh was actually, I found out, forbidden to me since I hold a foreign passport, and not the correct permission. There was a checkpoint on the way and my aunt began saying prayers left right and centre and I thought I was about to implode. Thankfully we were not made to stop; the worst that would happen in any case would be that we would have to turn back and take another route, losing another couple of hours travelling. Yet this was a significant event because it is indicative of the Palestinians’ lifestyle. So much is about where you can or can’t go. Read more about Living their lives as best they can 

The Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence is larger than the late President Yasir Arafat. The decades-long symbolism that Arafat embodied should not be underestimated. It is this symbolism that Palestinians are mourning. Despite the confusion of the hour, one fact remains clear. The Palestinian people, collectively, whether in the Occupied Territories, scattered in squalid refugee camps around the Middle East, or living in exile, will never wake up one day and accept the historic injustice that has been done to them. Read more about Palestine Greater Than Arafat  

We all cannot sleep, this Friday early morning. Mary, Jara and I sit around the TV to watch the latest news about Arafat. The best news on offer is the announcement that he is not yet dead but in coma, a “reversible coma,” it is said later on. Palestinian spokespersons in Ramallah and Paris were yesterday contradicting each other. I am reminded of the repeated complaints, at a recent conference, by young Palestinian media students about the presence of multiple spokespersons at the PNA. Jara solemnly announces that she hopes that “our leader will not die.” Toine van Teeffelen writes about the feeling in the streets of Bethlehem. Read more about The Mountain Shakes 

On October 21, Israel assassinated Adnan Ghoul, the number two man on its hit list in the Palestinian territories, after three previous assassination attempts on his life over the past four years had failed. Sixty-eight years ago, however, claimed an Israeli newspaper article two days later, Ghoul’s grandfather had saved a neighboring Jewish village from any harm during the Palestinian revolt of 1936. The fates of the two Ghouls is an interesting illustration of the understandings of the two peoples about their histories. Ahmad Sub Laban traces their respective histories for the Palestine Report. Read more about How could it have been different? 

Today (October 15) I planned to go photograph a new discovery of the visual art of Al Quds (Jerusalem). The Coptic Church in the old city is filled with two rows of murals on all of its walls, executed in 1961 by a Palestinian artist who had experienced the Nakbe. A friend stopped me, saying go run now or else I’d would be stuck in the crush of people going to pray the noon prayer at Al Aqsa. Not only is it Friday, but it’s also the first day of Ramadan. And oh, she added, the place will also be full of Israeli soldiers and police — they will seem to number as many as the worshipers, she said. Read more about The First Day of Ramadan 

Today I was dreading having to witness the humiliation of people. I was dreading the frightened children, the crying babies, the old and infirm forced to wait while being bossed around by armed men the age of their sons or their grandchildren. “Stand, wait, walk…” I was dreading having to witness people being threatened or beaten by the Israeli soldiers. I was dreading not being able to intervene physically because my baby daughter Shaden was coming with me. I was dreading the helplessness and the rage that comes with crossing Kalandia checkpoint. But, It was the first training of the olive harvest campaign and I wanted to be there. So I took my daughter Shaden and a very deep breath, and called a cab… Read more about Three hours at Kalandia checkpoint 

WAFA — “Hamdulillah Assalama” (“Praise God for your safety”), the residents of Jabalia Refugee Camp repeat whenever they meet each other in the dusty roads and lanes of the camp. Groups of people are paying condolence visits at dozens of condolence tents scattered in the camp. The scene is eerily similar to theway that people here celebrate and congratulate each other on major religious holidays, such as Eid al-Fitr. Sand mixes with the ash of tyres scattered along the roads of the camp. Every night, the residents burn the tyres in order to create a shield of smoke thick enough to jam the signals of the Israeli drones crisscrossing the sky. Sami Abu Salem reports from northern Gaza. Read more about Jabalia: "Hamdulillah Assalamah" 

“The news from Palestine is so bad and the process of strangulation applied by Israel is so constant and murderous that one expects the worst. But I always find silent resistance, the natural tenacity of life, and the stubbornness of the Palestinians erasing my mental pictures of doom. Still yet, the disastrous applications of the Israelis take my breath away.” Samia Halaby, who was forced to leave Palestine in 1948. Her family emigrated to the United States where she became an artist and taught at American Universities, including the Yale School of Art. These days she is back in Palestine and writing about her experiences. Read more about Strangulation