Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them.

In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B.

The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories).

In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long.

The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.

John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector.

The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace.

Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago.

Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid.

Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority".

Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations.

"Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."

Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.

“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.

Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.

“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”

Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.

“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”

He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”

Illegal annexation

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.

“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.

Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.

Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

Extreme poverty

Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.

While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.

“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.

“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.

“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.

Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.

Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.

Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank

Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.

“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.

Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.

To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.

It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.

“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).

Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”

A small group of Palestinian Christians stands outside Gaza City's Baptist Church on a Sunday morning, waiting for the generator to power up. The church is cold and dark in the dead of winter, Israel having reduced fuel supplies to Gaza in an effort to pressure Hamas to halt rocket fire into Israel.

Freshly bound prayer books, containing traditional American hymns, are tucked into the backs of the chairs in the fifth-floor prayer room. But there are no visible religious symbols in the room or outside the building, constructed about a year ago with the help of Christian donors in the U.S. and abroad.

Just eight worshippers are present for the service, compared with more than 100 who attended Sunday prayers six months ago.

Gaza's small Baptist community is dwindling rapidly. Pastor Hanna Massad, who attended seminary in California, took refuge in the West Bank after congregant Rami Eyad was killed in October. Mr. Eyad's religious bookshop was bombed in April.

Mr. Massad and his wife, director of the Gaza Bible Society, which is now closed, still hope to return.

Life has become increasingly difficult for Christians in Gaza since Hamas seized control of the coastal strip in June. Most Christians do not hold Hamas directly responsible, but they are calling for increased protection and accountability.

"The Hamas leadership, on the political level, wants to live side by side with the Christian community, but we are not sure who is responsible for Rami's murder," said Mr. Massad.

Ihab Al-Ghusain, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, condemned the killing but said there had been no progress in the investigation. Some suspect an Islamic extremist group was behind the attack.

Church elder Farid Ayad, 67, now leads the Baptist service. "As a child, I learned from the American Baptist Mission that was here since 1954," said Mr. Ayad. The mission left in 2001, but a representative from the Southern Baptist Church remains in Jerusalem.

Clergymen in Gaza estimate there are about 3,000 Christians still living in the Gaza Strip. Most are Greek Orthodox, but there are also a few hundred Catholics and a handful of Baptists. They live among some 1.5 million Muslims in the 140-square-mile territory.

Some Christians believe the Hamas government is trying to protect them, if only to improve their image in the eyes of the West. But for others, the threat has become too great.

Over the past few weeks, Israel granted temporary permission to hundreds of Gaza Christians to travel to the West Bank for the holidays. At least six families — more than 40 people — did not return.

Wael Hashwa and his family of four are now living in the West Bank town of Beit Zahur, near Bethlehem. "We are living here month to month, waiting for the situation to improve," said Mr. Hashwa, who was employed by a now-closed organization of Christian ministers in Gaza.

The Baptist community, self-described as evangelical, has been a principal target of the extremists because of its missionary work, which has been halted.

"Christians get killed here, let alone a Muslim who converted," said Ashraf, 36, from Gaza City, who declined to provide his last name. "I stopped going to church even before the coup."

Father Artymos, originally from Greece, leads the St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, founded 1,600 years ago in Gaza's old city. Christians and Muslims live peacefully together in Gaza, said Father Artymos, but conversions and the construction of new churches are prohibited.

The Rev. Manuel Musallan of the Latin Church in Gaza City blamed Israel for the woes of his tiny Catholic community, which also runs a school with 1,200 students, many of them Muslims.

"The embargo is inhumane. It attacks the innocent here — children, the sick and the elderly," he said. "If Gaza is to be prepared for peace, this is not the way."

Father Musallan meets regularly with the Hamas leadership, but members of his congregation are not as confident. "We are afraid Hamas is targeting Christians," said Issa, who manages a designer-clothing store in the city center.

Issa, who asked that his full name not be used, returned on foot from a Christmas holiday in the West Bank with bags of clothing to refill the barren shelves of his store.

Attacks against Christians have been rare in Gaza, but the Christians fear that small, well-armed, Islamic extremist groups may see Hamas rule as an opportunity to weed them out.

Hamas has increased security in Christian neighborhoods and near churches. "There are groups in Gaza, only a few, that share an al Qaeda ideology, and we will stop them," said Mr. Al-Ghusain, the Interior Ministry spokesman.

An elaborate network of tunnels from Egypt has become the primary transport route for commercial goods entering the Gaza Strip, enabling the area's Hamas rulers to maintain a rudimentary economy in the face of an Israeli embargo.

Food products, machinery parts, raw materials and even antibiotics are delivered to Gaza through the tunnels, subject to fees from private families that own some of the passages and to taxes by Hamas. Other smuggled products range from cigarettes to mobile phones.

The traffic through the tunnels has enabled Gaza stores to begin slowly restocking shelves, which as recently as three months ago were without such basics as tea and underwear.

Israeli authorities, who say large quantities of weapons also are smuggled through the tunnels, are expected to press President Bush during his Middle East tour beginning today to demand that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak do more to shut down the passages.

"The U.S. can engage with regional parties to strengthen border security and help the peace process," said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He estimated there are "dozens" of tunnels passing under the border on either side of the Rafah crossing to Egypt.

Hamas insists it has nothing to do with the tunnels. "Palestinians in Gaza are desperate, and desperate people resort to all means to survive," said spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. "Israel is using the issue to justify attacks against Hamas."

At least some of the tunnels have existed for years, used to smuggle products for sale on Gaza's black market. During the second intifada, the passages were used to bring in weapons, cash and people.

But the use of the tunnels has greatly expanded since June, when Israel responded to Hamas' forcible seizure of power in the Strip by imposing strict limits on the cross-border passage of goods.

An average of only 18 trucks per day are allowed to enter Gaza carrying food and humanitarian goods to sustain a population of 1.5 million, according to the United Nations. Only 19 trucksful of exports were allowed to exit between June and November.

Distributors and former Palestinian Authority intelligence officers in Gaza say Hamas, anxious to circumvent the embargo, has taken control of all activity through the tunnels.

"New tunnels must be approved by Hamas, and if you own your own tunnel, Hamas charges a fee," said one former senior intelligence officer, who is still working covertly in Rafah. Goods that make the trip of about 500 yards are subject to a 30 percent tax.

Tunnel entrances are located inside homes on both sides of the border. Some use simple pulley systems to transport goods, and some are more sophisticated, with electrical tracks and lighting, said the intelligence officer.

He estimated that 60 to 70 tunnels are operating along the 7.5 mile-long border and said Israel and Egypt are aware of their locations.

Israel has presented Egypt with surveillance footage showing Egyptian border-security officers assisting the smugglers. The footage was also sent to Washington, reportedly in an attempt to encourage Congress to withhold aid to Egypt.

But Egyptian officials say Israeli claims that tons of weaponry have entered Gaza through the tunnels are greatly exaggerated.

"Less than 10 percent of what Israel claims has been smuggled. The numbers they mention are technically impossible," said an Egyptian official in Israel. "American teams have visited the area."

Egypt also points out that Israel has rejected its requests to increase the number of officers on the Rafah border, a number limited under the 1978 Camp David Accords.

The current allotment of 750 officers is not enough, said the Egyptian official. "One-third are at rest, one-third are training, and one-third are on duty" at any given time, he said.

Egypt has also used U.S. funds to purchase a multimillion-dollar ground sensory system to detect the tunnels. U.S. teams will train the Egyptians to use the system, which can pick up sounds and movements underground.

Israeli cuts in fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip are hitting home, affecting schools, hospitals and businesses as officials from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority exchange blame for the suffering.

Utility cuts are intended to pressure Hamas to halt rocket fire into Israel.

Filling stations across this seaside territory have shut down, crippling public transportation systems.

Khozendar Sons Co., one of the largest fuel suppliers in Gaza, halted operations in Gaza City last week to protest the limited fuel deliveries. Desperate residents were turned away by signs that read "No diesel" plastered on every pump.

A life-size dummy dangled from a noose in front of the empty pumps at one station, a sign tacked to its chest reading: "Those responsible."

The fuel crunch also is leaving families without dependable supplies of water or electricity.

"We don't speak about Jerusalem or about refugees; we speak about [50,000 gallons] of fuel to sustain life in the region," said Maamon Khozendar, chairman of Khozendar Sons. He argued that forcing the region deeper into poverty would only increase support for Hamas.

Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Radee, a Hamas member, accused the Fatah-led government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of colluding with Israel to undermine conditions in the Hamas-ruled strip.

Israel court rejects petition by human rights groups

"This is not only Israel; the Ramallah government is taking part in this," he said.

Before Hamas militants drove Fatah security forces from the territory in June, 160,000 gallons of fuel were delivered to Gaza daily. At least 80,000 gallons are required to meet basic needs.

Thousands of residents have lost access to safe drinking water because the fuel shortages have shut down generators used to pump water from wells in several neighborhoods, said Maher El-Najjar, an engineer at the Coastal Municipalities Water Authority.

The lack of fuel also has affected wastewater treatment plants across the territory. Raw sewage flowed through Gaza City streets after a partial closure of the main wastewater treatment plant, serving 400,000 residents.

"We have about 30 percent of the fuel in stock for Gaza's 12 hospitals and 52 primary health care centers," Mr. Radee said.

Medical employees have been unable to travel to work, while vaccinations and medications have spoiled without refrigeration.

In a joint appeal yesterday, the World Health Organization and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency said the energy shortages were having a severe effect on hospitals.

"WHO and UNRWA are appealing to all parties involved to ensure that in the future all health facilities in Gaza are supplied with the appropriate amount of electricity and fuel to provide fully functional services," the agencies said.

The Israeli army on Oct. 28 ordered private Israeli fuel company Dor Alon to provide 20 percent less fuel than had been ordered for Gaza. Gaza residents purchase fuel from Dor Alon under an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, and the fuel then is transferred through underground lines. Israel does not permit fuel to enter Gaza by sea or air, or across the Egyptian border.

The Temporary International Mechanism, an emergency program of the European Union to ensure that the Palestinian population's basic humanitarian needs are met under the embargo, supplies fuel to the Gaza power station, which produces 30 percent of Gaza's power.

Ten high-voltage lines running from Israel to Gaza supply 65 percent of Gaza's electrical needs. Israel proposed putting a dimmer on each line to reduce the supply incrementally.

The Israeli High Court of Justice on Friday rejected a petition by human rights groups describing the reduction of fuel supplies to Gaza as "collective punishment" and illegal under international law. The court will issue a decision on the reduction of electricity this week.

Four large charter buses rolled towards Jalameh Israeli military checkpoint between the West Bank city of Jenin and Israel at 6am on 20 December 2006. On board were 222 eager Palestinian family members. Their final destination was Damoun Prison located in the Israeli coastal city of Haifa.

Four hours later, the passengers cleared security inspections and the buses entered Israel, facilitated by the "family visitation programme" of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), where 83 Palestinian prisoners behind bars waited for the visits.

Nabil and Huda Ward, along with their two teenage daughters were seated in the second row of one bus, on their way to visit their son Naseem, aged 26, for the first time since he was incarcerated in April 2002. Naseem was only permitted to see his lawyer after the interrogation process was complete. After awaiting trial for more than two years, he was convicted of firing at an Israeli soldier while on duty as member of the Palestinian National Security forces. He had direct orders to defend Jenin Camp during an Israeli invasion.

Naseem is not considered a prisoner of war. Israel does not afford Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces the privileges of the Fourth Geneva Convention, since the Palestinian territories are not an official state, according to the Israeli Justice Ministry.

Veterans of suffering under Israeli occupation, the Wards' daughter, Riham, was killed at the age of ten by Israeli forces in 2001, inside her classroom at Al-Ibrahim Girls School in Jenin. Their younger son Salah, was held in administrative detention, without charge or trail, inside an Israeli prison for one year and then shipped to the Gaza Strip in 2005, where he has been trapped ever since. There is no trial for administrative detention, but a periodical review of the case made by a review board which confers some procedural safeguards, according to the ICRC.

As of November 2006, Israel has been holding approximately 700 Palestinians in administrative detention, according to the Israeli human rights NGO B'Tselem. The information that forms the basis for detentions is classified; this means that neither the detainee nor his lawyer can challenge it. Thousands have been held in administrative detention since the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

The ICRC monitors the condition of detention and treatment of all Palestinian detainees, estimated at 11,500 and including nearly 400 children and 120 women. Almost all are imprisoned inside Israel. Most Palestinians cannot gain access to Israel. Even with the help of the ICRC, family members are often denied permission to enter for the sake of prison visits.

The ICRC asserts that Israel has not fulfilled its obligations under international law, specifically Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which stipulates that citizens under military occupation cannot be removed from the occupied territory, thereby prohibiting family member visits.

The Israeli army admits that most Palestinian detainees are imprisoned inside Israel, but argues that removing Palestinians from occupied Palestinian territory is approved by the Israeli High Court of Justice and is consistent with Israeli law.

The Ward family hired an Arab-Israeli lawyer to represent Naseem. Palestinian lawyers do not do have access to Israeli courts, meaning the Israeli military court system. The lawyers who do practice in it are beyond Palestinian reach.

Palestinians arrested by the Israeli army in the West Bank fall under the jurisdiction of Israeli "military legislation". This is a separate military court system that applies only to the occupied Palestinian territories, according to the Israeli army.

"It is a collection of 'military orders' written by the [Israeli] military commander issued without any supervision. They are not approved by the Knesset," said Israeli lawyer Lea Tsemel, who has been representing Palestinians within this system for 35 years, and has tried several cases before the Israeli Supreme Court.

"Military legislation fluctuates according to the situation," explained an ICRC legal advisor. "Military orders" are part of military legislation, down to the location of specific checkpoints in a complex network of more than 534 barriers erected to restrict Palestinian movement within the West Bank. Some of military orders give rise to the concern that they are incompatible with international law, according to the legal advisor. Israel is the occupying power, but the two parties are in conflict. It is difficult to claim that the system is objective.

There is no trial for administrative detention, but a periodical review of the case made by a review board which confers some procedural safeguards, according to the ICRC.

The prisoner issue is a particularly sensitive national issue for Palestinians. Most Palestinian families have had at least one family member imprisoned inside Israel. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners report that they were tortured. They say that this usually occurs during the interrogation process when they are first arrested, and before they see a lawyer.

"Every person arrested upon suspicion of committing a crime must be brought before a judge within eight days of his arrest," according to the Israeli army, but "a military judge may order the suspect's continued arrest for investigation for up to 90 additional days." The detainee's right to an attorney "may be postponed" should "security needs require".

Prisoners have reported to the ICRC that torture is used to obtain confessions or information. The ICRC has presented these cases to the Israeli Justice Ministry and Prison Authority, but declines to comment further. The Israeli Justice Ministry asserts that "moderate force" is permitted during interrogation if a person "is a ticking bomb", but that torture is forbidden.

The chairperson of the Prisoners' Committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council, Khalida Jarar, says that the use of torture by the Israeli military during interrogations has decreased as new methods, harder to detect, have been adopted. These methods include violent shaking; sleep deprivation; and solitary confinement. "Collaboration rooms" are still used, according to Jarar, in which Israelis impersonating Palestinians coax the prisoners into speaking about nationalistic activities. The statements are later used against the prisoner as confessions. Palestinians can receive sentences ranging from six months to ten years for membership of a Palestinian militant faction.

Meanwhile, nearly 10,000 Gazans rallied around the Palestinian legislative building in Gaza City last week in support of Hamas's continued holding of an Israeli soldier captured in June 2006. Many of the demonstrators were women, hoping that a prisoner exchange would return their loved ones home to them.

Hamas and affiliated factions captured Gilad Shalit on 25 June, in an operation near the Gaza-Egypt border. Negotiations for his release are ongoing, mediated primarily by Egypt. On 26 June Israel launched Operation Summer Rain with the announced goals of freeing Shalit and halting rocket fire into Israel from Gaza. According to an annual report published by B'Tselem, 405 Palestinians were killed in Gaza by Israeli forces since 25 June, including 88 children and 205 bystanders. Israeli forces destroyed the main power station in Gaza, with many residents still today deprived of electricity.

For its part, Israel claims that Gaza is no longer "occupied", following its September 2005 withdrawal. The Israeli army adjusted its detention policy accordingly. Now Palestinians arrested in Gaza are held according to the "laws of armed conflict." They are tried as citizens of a foreign country, according to the Israeli Justice Ministry.

Palestinians assert Gaza is still "occupied" given that Israel retained control of Gaza's commercial and passenger border crossings, as well as its air and sea space. Karni, Gaza's only commercial crossing point, has been closed for more than half of the past year. Rafah, the only passenger crossing, opens only sporadically.

"They kidnap people from Gaza and try them in Israeli civilian courts, according to a law that anyone who acts against the State of Israel can be sentenced inside Israel," says Tsemel, currently defending Islamic University Professor Younis Abu Daka who lives in Gaza. Daka was arrested and deported to Israel for running in the legislative elections on the Hamas ticket a year ago. This is despite Israel's having approved Hamas's participation in the elections.

Back in the West Bank, the Wards anticipate the release of Naseem in April 2008, although they fear that like his brother, he will be sent to Gaza, instead of being allowed to return home. Sending West Bank residents to Gaza upon their release has become common Israeli practice, in direct violation of international law.