News stories by Jerrold Kessel, page 7

What's a name, what's in a road name? History, ideology, nationalism.

The concerted effort of international human rights activists to rein in violations of laws of war was given a major impetus when Human Rights Watch researchers presented a report Tuesday on the unbridled use by the Israeli military of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCLAV), commonly known as drones, during Israel's 22-day assault on Hamas in Gaza at the beginning of the year.

In this Arab town in northern Israel, Michael Zantovsky, the Czech Republic ambassador, is throwing an end-of-term party, an event markedly different from customary diplomatic bashes.

'What are you doing here?' The motorist in the battered white Volvo stops to ask us alongside an overflowing rubbish cart. Residents of this poor Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem have been burning garbage in a bid to clear the uncollected mounds.

Air raid sirens wailed out on Tuesday morning and Israelis were asked to go down into bomb shelters as the country engaged in its largest-ever civil defence drill. Israelis remain deeply worried by what they perceive as an existential threat of a possible future all-out missile attack from Iran and its proxies.

Israel is set to approve a radical new bill which threatens to legalise discrimination against its sizeable Arab minority for the first time.

Even as Pope Benedict XVI tries his best during his current Holy Land visit to pay reverence to the attachment of all three monotheistic faiths to Jerusalem, on the ground a less lofty imprint is already furthering Israeli control over the Holy City in a way that could threaten the claims of all but Jews to Jerusalem.

A new spate of demolitions of Palestinian homes by the Israeli authorities near Jerusalem's walled Old City, plus resuscitated plans for a new major Jewish settlement building project on the outskirts of occupied East Jerusalem, threatens to spark fresh tension between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Israeli army's Advocate General has summarily closed an internal investigation into allegations stemming from accounts by soldiers of abuses against Palestinian civilians committed during Israel's recent war on Hamas in Gaza.

The cluster of blue-and-white Stars of David - Israel's national flag - had seen better days. In the wake of unseasonably heavy rain, they looked limp, anything but proud - in direct contrast to the mark their bearers hoped to make.