News stories by Mel Frykberg, page 13

Last November, Muhammad Al Saba, 36, from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip was sentenced to death by hanging by a military court in Gaza for alleged acts of 'treason and collaborating with hostile forces.'

In early February, 41-year-old Fayez Ahmed Faraj, a father of nine from the city of Hebron, 30 miles south of Jerusalem, in the southern West Bank, was shot dead in his home town by Israeli soldiers after he allegedly tried to stab one of them.

Many Israelis like to believe, and the cliché is repeated regularly in Israel, that their army is the 'most moral army in the world.'

On Tuesday tens of hundreds of Palestinians of all political persuasions took to the streets, alleys and sidewalks as widespread rioting and protests spread across East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and into Israel proper.

Israeli riot police and soldiers have, since Friday, sealed off the Al Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine, restricting entry to women and Palestinian men over 50.

Amid the wave of violence that swept through the occupied Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem, over the last few days, there are signs that the Israeli left may be emerging from its collective coma.

Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, with its ubiquitous closures, checkpoints, military raids and arrests, has decimated the Palestinian economy in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel’s illegal occupation and continued expropriation of Palestinian land in the West Bank has left 2.5 million Palestinians living there with effectively less than 40 percent of the territory.

Hamas has closed ranks and is licking its wounds following the Jan. 20 assassination in Dubai of one of its top operatives, Mahmoud Al Mabhouh. It is alleged that one of its own was responsible for providing the hit team with vital logistical information.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah is fighting a tidal wave of fresh allegations, including sexual harassment, an internal power struggle and embezzlement.