Gaza on brink of implosion as aid cut-off starts to bite
The end of Western funding and Israel's crossing closure sharpen Palestinian divisions, reports Conal Urquhart in Gaza City

An empty watchtower overlooks a deserted road lined with rusting vehicle parts. The only traffic is a pregnant bitch and a mule and cart. This is Gaza's economic lifeline, the Karni crossing into Israel, which is supposed to handle 1,300 containers of merchandise and food per day in order to sustain 1.3 million people. But nothing is entering or leaving Gaza, and now the funds to purchase what is available there are also drying up, bringing the dire situation of its people to a new and febrile crisis.

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Last chance for two states
Negotiation rather than unilateralism is the way out of the spiralling Israeli-Palestinian crisis

Monday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv rightly drew international condemnation, yet criticism of Israel's relentless shelling of civilian population centres in the occupied Gaza Strip has been blocked by the US at the UN security council. This month alone, Israeli forces have killed more than 30 Palestinians, including at least six children, and injured 130 others, while about 200 shells have been fired into the Gaza Strip every day. While prominent members of the international community call on Hamas to make statements in support of a two-state solution, their own policies are rapidly foreclosing that option. Following Hamas's accession to the Palestinian Authority, the EU and the US seem more intent on punishing the Palestinians for the results of their exemplary elections than on persuading Israel that peace and security will only materialise through negotiated political accommodation. Ostensibly, the US-led decision to cut funding to the PA is designed to penalise Hamas for failing to renounce violence, recognise Israel's right to exist and publicly commit to previously-signed agreements. But this approach is certain to backfire. One million of the estimated 3.8 million Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories rely on PA salaries for their livelihoods. Impoverishing and embittering our people will not only exacerbate the existing humanitarian predicament, it will likely worsen the security crisis for Palestinians and Israelis alike.

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I don't exist!

...well, at least not according to British Airways. I was attempting to enter in my "passenger details" and country of citizenship and residence on their website for a flight I have booked next month (from Cairo, 8 hours and a border crossing away, since the Gaza airport is incapacitated-much like Sharon, and the Tel Aviv airport is off limits to Palestinians), but guess what...I don't exist! Palestine/Palestinian Territories (territories, what territories?..maybe "Palestinian bantustans")/OPT/Gaza Strip/Palestinian Authority..well, none of the above mentioned options are present, and since I am the holder of a Palestinian Authority passport (which one can only get based on having an Israeli-issued ID card, or hawia...) I am a non-category.

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Palestinians commemorate Prisoners Day, as all hell breaks loose

I'm very tired so instead of posting something on how all hells break loose here between one second and the next, and how just when you say to yourself-well how about that, only 20 shells today! and no gunbattles between bickering testosterone charged gunmen with nothing better to do! and no suicide bombings!...well..needless to say, things have a way of turning very bad, very quickly here. 9 killed in Tel Aviv, another Palestinian boy killed in Beit Lahiya by Israeli shelling (that makes 16 since the start of the year)... and I just heard an explosion near my house...

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Is Hamas Being Forced to Collapse?
Conditions on the Ground Have Never Been So Tense

As many predicted, including myself, the newly elected Palestinian government led by Hamas has already started to show an impressive level of pragmatism, however, Israel and the U.S. seem to not be interested. As a matter of fact the U.S., in specific, is leading a global campaign to isolate the Palestinian government in such a haphazard way, that they are also causing a troubling level of despair among the average Palestinian citizen as well.

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