News stories by Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, page 4

Medication and pillboxes fill two white bookcases, lining the wall behind a volunteer Israeli doctor. He talks to a patient in Hebrew about the man’s medical condition, as another man is examined behind a curtain that divides the small office. In the next room, at least 40 people — mainly of Eritrean and Sudanese origin — sit quietly on plastic chairs, waiting for their turn to be seen.

For 61-year-old Abd al-Rahim Bisharat, life in the Bedouin community of al- Hadidiya in the northern Jordan Valley is anything but easy. 'The problem is not only poverty, but the degree of how (the Israelis) treat us as humans, our rights as humans,' Bisharat told IPS over the phone from his home, with the sound of roosters crowing in the background. 'We have no transportation, no electricity, no water, no health, no education.

As thousands of right-wing Israeli settlers descended on Jerusalem to celebrate the so-called unification of the city this week, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem were confronted by extreme provocations and the stark reality that their city remains very much divided.

A new Israeli law that would bind migrant workers in nursing or care-giving professions to their employers is raising alarm amidst human rights groups and legal experts, who say that the law infringes upon the workers’ right to dignity and freedom.

As plans to demolish a Palestinian Bedouin village to make way for a new, Jewish-only town move forward in Israel’s Negev desert, the Bedouin residents have submitted a motion for the right to appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court.