News stories by Mel Frykberg, page 10

For seven years Majda Abdul Qader Sheikh, 38, has not been allowed to visit the home of her parents, just a few hundred metres from her house.

A bruising battle of will is taking place between Israeli security forces and Palestinians recently made homeless after two Palestinian villages were razed and hundreds left homeless.

Gazans are caught between a rock and a hard place. While Israel continues to apply a crippling siege on the coastal territory, Gaza's Hamas government is cracking down on civil and political liberties in what appears to be a campaign to slowly Islamise Gaza.

Anger has arisen in Palestinian areas over reports that millions of tax-exempt dollars from the U.S. are being funneled towards Israel's illegal settlement building in the Palestinian West Bank -- in flagrant violation of international law.

Palestinian activists are being jailed, Israeli activists are under surveillance, and the Israeli military is increasingly targeting journalists who cover West Bank protests.

Israel has received international praise for its decision to ease its crippling blockade on Gaza following the country's deadly assault on a humanitarian flotilla trying to bring desperately needed humanitarian aid to the coastal territory. But according to the UN and human rights organisations, the easing of the blockade is insufficient in meeting Gaza's needs.

Israeli intelligence has warned that a new war with Hezbollah on Israel's northern border with Lebanon cannot be ruled out, following heightened tensions between United Nations peacekeeping forces and Hezbollah supporters in the south of Lebanon.

Frequent clashes and continuing tension in disputed East Jerusalem could portend a major outbreak of civil unrest, residents fear.

'Where is my daddy? Why is he not coming home? I want my daddy,' sobs seven- year-old Yasmin, her big blue eyes filling with tears. She wakes up crying every night.

'I stopped counting after I had received 50 death threats. I told my secretary not to tell me about them any more,' Arab-Israeli Knesset (parliament) member, Hanan Zoabi told IPS.