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.”

As many as 2,000 Palestinian prisoners – nearly half of the 4,500 Palestinians currently in Israeli jails – have launched a mass hunger strike that is gaining momentum and putting pressure on Israel to review prisoner demands.

More prisoners join each day, and many see hunger striking as their last option, especially those who are held without charge or trial under Israel's administrative detention policy and limited legal recourse. They blame not only the Jewish state, which defends the policy as necessary to its security, but also the Palestinian Authority for not securing better rights for prisoners.

“The hunger strike is the strongest thing the detainee can do … a person inside jail can’t make any other kind of resistance,” says Khader Adnan, a member of the Islamic Jihad militant movement whose 66-day hunger strike earlier this year became something of a cause célèbre among Palestinians. “Because the detainee has no instrument for protesting, to make his voice loud, except this kind of protest. A hunger strike is using the man’s own body as an instrument against humiliation and oppression.”

Among those who followed Mr. Adnan's example are the two longest hunger strikers are Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh, who have refused food for 66 days and are in critical condition, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.

Robert Serry, the United Nations envoy for Middle East peace, issued a statement yesterday saying he was "deeply troubled" by the conditions of those prisoners, who are being held in administrative detention. "Above all, he urges all sides to find a solution before it is too late, and calls on Israel to abide by its legal obligations under international law and do everything in its power to preserve the health of the prisoners," the statement said.

'These are not boy scouts'

Since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Palestinian prisoners have executed more than a dozen hunger strikes. One in five Palestinians has spent time in an Israeli jail, according to prisoner support group Adameer, and almost every family has had a member incarcerated.

But Israel, which has lost thousands of civilians to Palestinian terrorist attacks, says it is not locking up just anyone.

“These are not boy scouts,” says the Israeli prime minister's spokesperson, Mark Regev, cautioning that most prisoners refusing food have been convicted of crimes by Israel. Mr. Adnan, he points out, is an admitted member of Islamic Jihad – an organization that has claimed responsibility for the deaths of scores of Israelis. He calls the use of administrative detention “unfortunate, but necessary” because it is used to protect informants who provide information about those being detained.

Of those in Israeli jails, at least 300 are being held under administrative detention orders, which can be repeatedly renewed without a transparent judicial process. In a report released May 2, Human Rights Watch said, “Israel should immediately charge or release people jailed without charge or trial under so-called administrative detention."

“Administrative detention is not meant to be used as a substitution for a criminal process,” says Sarit Michaeli, a spokesperson for the Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem. “All the evidence is secret. It removes the ability of a person to defend themselves.”

Solidarity protests

Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists have been holding regular protests in a show of solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. Yesterday protesters clashed with the Israeli army outside Israel’s Ofer military prison near the city of Ramallah in the West Bank. Youth armed with slingshots, their faces covered with keffiyehs, pelted soldiers with rocks outside the prison where Israel holds around 500 Palestinian detainees.

“I want the prisoners to take their rights. To have their demands met. I want to show them we are here with them,” says one young female activist, her identity concealed by a scarf wrapped around her face and large sunglasses in the midst of a barrage of tear gas used by the army to push back the demonstrators on Thursday. “[The Palestinian Authority] is not doing enough. By hunger striking, Khader Adnan took what he wanted.”

Indeed, Mr. Adnan is a new symbol of resistance in the Palestinian Territories. He was arrested in his home on Dec. 17, 2011. Although he is a member of the Islamic Jihad organization, considered a terrorist group by Israel and the US, he was not charged with any crime.

He was held under administrative detention based on secret evidence, and even he didn’t know the details of the accusations against him. He started his hunger strike to protest his nine arrests over the last 12 years, abusive treatment by Israeli forces, and detention without charge. For 66 days he refused food before an agreement was reached to release him.

A stencil of Mr. Adnan’s face with a padlock pressed between his lips began appearing on walls and placards across the West Bank. Spaces once filled with martyr posters of young men with multiple weapons now feature his bearded face with thin-rimmed glasses, popularizing the nonviolent hunger-strike tactic and drawing attention to his case.

Israeli Prison Service to review prisoner requests

Sivan Weizman, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prison Service, says they have created a team to review the requests of the prisoners, which include an end to this practice of administrative detention and isolation, as well as lifting recent restrictions on family visits and access to university education.

But they are not bowing to the prisoners’ demands because of this wide-scale action, she says, noting that the team was assembled before the mass hunger strike started. “Let’s be clear,” Ms. Weizman says, “It’s not because of the strike.”

As of yet, the mass hunger strike has produced no concrete results and rights groups say the Israeli authorities are punishing those who refuse to eat by removing electronics from their rooms and further restricting contact with their families and other prisoners. Weizman says some prisoners have been moved and had “privileges” taken away, but says it’s not “punishment.”

Sahar Francis, a lawyer and director from the prisoner support group Adameer, calls Adnan’s case a victory and says that reviewing Israel’s reaction so far to the mass hunger strike shows Israel sees the tactic as a threat. “It puts pressure on the prison system,” says Ms. Francis.

There were rumors and Palestinians hopes that the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap this fall would result in the release of Marwan Barghouti, the man who many see as a possible successor to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Under the Shalit deal, more than 1,000 Palestinians were to be released over several months in exchange for the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas in 2006. But as Israel announced the names of the remaining 550 prisoners to be released today, Mr. Barghouti was not among them.

Barghouti is perhaps the most prominent Palestinian still imprisoned by Israel, and he is championed by many Palestinians not only as a preferred successor to Mr. Abbas but also the man who can make peace with Israel.

With a militant background and time behind bars, he has street cred that Abbas lacks, but that also makes him controversial in Israel and abroad. He has, however, professed a commitment to peace in more recent years; some compare him to South Africa's Nelson Mandela, who emerged from 27 years in prison to usher in the country's transition from apartheid to democracy.

"If Israel is really interested in a Palestinian partner for a two-state solution, they will release Marwan Barghouti," says Mahdi Abdel Hadi, director of the Palestinian Academic Society For the Study of International Affairs in Jerusalem.

Barghouti's appeal

Barghouti was arrested in 2002 and charged in 26 deaths and belonging to a terrorist organization. Two years later he was convicted for the death of four Israelis and a Greek monk, while the other 21 counts were dropped. Although no proof was brought showing his direct involvement in the killings, an Israeli court convicted him based on his leadership role of militias affiliated with his Fatah political party and sentenced him to five life terms.

The image of Barghouti in Israeli custody with handcuffed arms raised above his head dots the West Bank. At the Qalandiya checkpoint, where Palestinians frequently sit for hours waiting to cross into Israel, there is a huge portrait of him on the separation wall next to that of the late Palestinian icon Yasser Arafat – the guerrilla fighter turned president of the internationally backed Palestinian Authority (PA).

Arafat's successor, Mr. Abbas, has neither the charisma nor the military record of Arafat – and certainly less popular backing. He has spent most of his life outside of the West Bank, living in several Arab countries and earning a PhD at a university in Moscow. Barghouti, by contrast, is from the village of Kobar, just eight miles outside Ramallah.

“Barghouti is from our homeland,” says Jamil Anton, sitting in his electronics shop in Ramallah. "Abbas came from outside."

Older Palestinians not as enthralled

Many Palestinians in Ramallah recall personal encounters with Barghouti and consider him free of the sort of corruption allegations that have plagued PA officials, both under Abbas and Arafat – even though he served in the Palestinian parliament for a few years. Ahead of parliamentary elections in 2005, Barghouti released a statement from prison promising an end to corruption his Fatah movement.

Such promises make Barghouti appealing to young people like Ahmed Moussa.

“The younger leadership needs to take its place. We need new blood,” says Younes of Barghouti, who is two decades younger than Abbas. “We will have new elections and there should be new people in these elections, especially for Fatah.”

But Ahmed's father, Samir Moussa, is among a generation of older West Bank residents who suffered through two intifadas, or uprisings, and don't want to jeopardize the economic benefits of stability they're now enjoying, helped by Abbas's message of moderation and compromise.

International aid money has poured into Ramallah under his leadership and that of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and the economy has been steadily growing. When Abbas defied Israel and the US and made a bid for full Palestinian membership at the United Nations, his popularity spiked; one poll showed him trouncing Barghouti for the first time.

“I think Abu Mazan is the man of these days, because now we need negotiations and he is the man who can lead us in these negotiations,” says the elder Moussa.

Barghouti's potential strengths at the peace table

Barghouti is considered a leader of the second intifada, which began in 2000. While he has opposed attacks on civilians inside Israel proper, he has maintained the Palestinian right to resistance in the occupied West Bank.

"And while I, and the Fatah movement to which I belong, strongly oppose attacks and the targeting of civilians inside Israel, our future neighbor," wrote Barghouti in a 2002 op-ed in the Washington Post. "I reserve the right to protect myself, to resist the Israeli occupation of my country and to fight for my freedom. If Palestinians are expected to negotiate under occupation, then Israel must be expected to negotiate as we resist that occupation."

But while Barghouti is remembered as a man of resistance – he is the leader of Fatah's armed wing, Tanzim – he has advocated from prison for a two-state solution and for negotiating a settlement with Israel.

“Marwan was for violence,” says Hassan Hamdon, who works in the real estate sector. “But when he gets out of jail, if there is a road to peace, he will take it.”

Hani Masri, director of the Palestine Media, Research, and Studies Centre in Ramallah, says Barghouti is better suited to making peace with Israel than Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen.

"Barghouti can solve the problem better because he believes in resistance and negotiation," says Mr. Masri. "And Abu Mazen [Abbas] believes just [in[ negotiations. And it failed because the Israeli government didn't give him anything.... Until now, negotiations failed and the peace process is still without peace."

Although Barghouti's violent past gives Israel pause, his overwhelming popularity – which stems partially from his past as a resistance fighter – may enable him to make compromises and gains in negotiations for peace that Abbas cannot. Documents leaked by the Arab satellite TV network Al Jazeera earlier this year showed negotiators under his leadership offering compromises to Israel that many Palestinians are unwilling to accept.

“Arafat was a strong man. He could make peace. If Marwan comes out, he will be a strong man, too. A lot of people will vote for him. […] But if you have a weak person he cannot make anything,” says Mr. Hamdon. “Abbas thinks well, but he is not strong enough to change things and the Israelis see him as weak person, and that’s why they are not going to make peace with him.”

As Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas defends his bid for statehood at the United Nations, his people are defending their land.

Amid rising tensions between Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the West Bank, who both lay claim to the land, a coalition of local and foreign activists have begun setting up neighborhood watch patrols to monitor key flashpoints. The project highlights a newfound Palestinian boldness on the ground that mirrors Mr. Abbas's determination at the UN – despite American pressure.

"Palestinians have been left with no choice. The Israeli army isn’t doing enough to protect them from the increase in [settler] attacks,” says Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli activist and spokesperson for the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee. “It forces Palestinians to organize.”

The neighborhood patrol project is part of a new initiative launched by the committee, which is comprised of Palestinian, Israeli, and foreign activists working for the rights of Palestinians. The new patrols not only aim to protect Palestinians but also document attacks and property damage by settlers.

Documenting violence

The first patrol took place Monday at a spring near the village of Nabi Saleh, where Israelis from the adjacent Halamish settlement have tried to take over the water source and push Nabi Saleh's residents from the land. Here, residents clash weekly with the Israeli army.

“Yesterday there was one settler who attacked the car and tried to hit the driver,” says Mahmoud Abu Yusef, a father of five from the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Steering his car through winding hills outside his city, Mr. Yusef explains why he had joined the caravan of activists.

“This is my land,” says Mr. Abu Yusef. “I’m doing this because of the settlers … the soldiers don’t protect the Palestinians.”

The convoy, painted with the project’s name in Arabic, Hebrew and English and bearing Palestinian flags, continues to a rest stop to wait for news from villagers. One of the volunteers explains they will stay here because it allows them to reach most of the surrounding villages in the event the army closes the highway.

After 45 minutes, they receive a call that settlers are attacking the village of Aseera about 15 minutes away.

When they arrive in Aseera, the Israeli army has formed a line just above the village, a common procedure to prevent confrontation between Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents.

Committee volunteers jump from the cars in yellow vests, armed with cameras and video recorders.

Settlers from a nearby outpost who entered Aseera flee to a nearby hilltop, but Palestinian youth from the village begin to throw stones at the Israeli soldiers who respond with a barrage of tear gas. The volunteers document the incident.

“Palestine is my land,” says Abu Yusef. “Because of this I’m not scared.”

Israeli settlers also defend their right to the land

Abu Yusef’s assertion of ownership is echoed in the nearby Israeli settlement of Itmar, which made headlines earlier this year when five members of the Fogel family were killed in their sleep by Palestinian intruders.

“This is our home, Israel. It’s in the Bible. It belongs to the Jewish nation,” says Mayor Moshe Goldsmith in a thick New York accent. Around 200 residents of Itmar – a settlement deep in the West Bank, near Nablus – have gathered in front of the Fogel house in a sea of Israeli flags. They are preparing for a march to a junction a few miles away. “As the UN talks about giving away our land, we are showing that we are marching freely in the heart of the Jewish nation. And that’s our response.”

Mayor Goldsmith says it is Palestinians who are responsible for escalating violence. “They have been doing a lot of rock throwing and fire bombing and things like that,” he says.

Goldsmith is quick to dismiss the significance of possible UN recognition of a Palestinian state, particularly given the clout of settler groups within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration.

“Personally, it wouldn’t mean anything to me because I’m here to stay as long as the Israeli government remains strong in our beliefs," he says. "It’s our land and we will overcome.”

Nonviolent action – for now

And in many ways Palestinian officials have admitted there is some truth to Goldsmith’s assertion.

“There will be no immediate, direct, or practical consequences” of the UN statehood bid, says Ghassan Khatib, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority (PA). “This is a political move.”

UN recognition is unlikely to mean an overnight withdrawal of the Israeli army, which has occupied the West Bank since conquering it along with East Jerusalem in 1967. But it is likely to escalate tensions between Israeli settlers and Palestinians.

While rights groups say the Israeli army does too little to protect Palestinians, the PA has its own security apparatus. But the vast majority of Israeli settlers live in Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank, where Palestinian forces lack authority to operate. This leaves the PA near-helpless to defend Palestinians against settler attacks.

“We support peaceful nonviolent attempts to safeguard Palestinians,” says Mr. Khatib. “But we are encouraging people to avoid any violent reaction.”

With the approach of the UN bid, which Palestinians and their supporters see as a way to undermine Israeli settlements – already considered illegal under international law – settlers are trying to drag Palestinians into violence, says Mr. Khatib.

“But our people are aware of that so [nonviolence] will continue," he says, before adding a warning. "Maybe not forever.”

Sitting behind the counter in his convenience store stocked with Egyptian and Israeli goods, Emad Shawa leans close to the radio to not miss any of the news from Cairo.

Like many residents of Hamas-ruled Gaza, Mr Shawa is closely following the unfolding drama in Egypt, believing any change in the government there would be positive because of restrictions imposed by President Hosni Mubarak on their blockaded territory. Gaza and Egypt share a 15-kilometre border in the southern Rafah area. Hundreds of smuggling tunnels beneath the border serve as a main supply line for Gazans.

"Rafah, it's going to be open," predicted Mr Shawa. "If a new regime opens it by itself, or a regime refuses - it will be open anyway, because the people's will is stronger."

Egypt and Israel severely limited access to Gaza after Hamas took over the crowded coastal strip of 1.5 million people from the western-backed Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, in 2007.

Few here speak kindly of Mr Mubarak, who took power after the assassination of Anwar Sadat, the first Arab leader to sign a peace agreement with Israel. Mr Mubabark's regime has continued to work closely with the Jewish state and severely restricts Palestinians' movements across the heavily guarded border.

"The siege from the Israeli side was expected, we lived it for years, but when it came from a neighbouring Arab country, our brothers and sisters, it was more difficult mentally," added Mr Shawa."We don't blame the Egyptian people. We blame the government."

Since the Egyptian unrest started on Friday, few people or goods have entered from the country. The passenger crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which partially reopened several months ago as part of a slight easing of the blockade, was closed on Sunday by Egypt until further notice.

"I came here at four o'clock in the morning," said one woman waiting at the border with a permit to cross. She was trying to reach her home in Libya after visiting her family here. "They haven't said anything to us."

Others were trying to reach Jordan and the United Arab Emirates via the Cairo International Airport, but at around 9.30am on Sunday, a Palestinian official announced no one would be crossing that day.

The Hamas government is unwilling to open the gates without Egyptian permission and it remains unclear who is manning the Egyptian side of the border. Hamas - originally an offshoot of Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood opposition group - is now in a tricky position after years of a hot-and-cold relationship with the Egyptian regime.

In January of 2008, Hamas blasted a massive hole in the border wall and thousands of Palestinians flooded into Egypt to grab food and goods. For now, Hamas is treading lightly and declining to make official comments on the events unfolding in Egypt. They may fear backlash from Mr Mubarak's regime should it manage to survive the continued protests.

Smugglers also say the flow of fuel, cigarettes, cement and other items deemed contraband by Israel through the tunnels under Rafah has been disrupted in recent days. Gazans have begun hoarding fuel, longer lines of motorists were seen at gas stations, and prices have started to rise.

Mr Shawa sells a customer two packs of cigarettes for 15 shekels (Dh15) each. On Friday they cost 12 shekels.

Still, there is widespread optimism that an upheaval in Egypt could lead to better days in Gaza. From the creation of Israel in 1948 until the 1967 war, Gaza was under Egyptian administration and Gazans moved freely in Egypt. Many here remember fondly studying at Cairo's universities and working in the country.

"Some hope this situation might come back again," said Hani al Basboos, an assistant professor of political science as Gaza's Islamic University. "They hope people in Egypt will look after the Gaza Strip. It will affect us badly for a short time … but Gazans are supporting the Egyptian people."

Like many other Gazans, Khaled Nasser, 29, was excited about the prospect of more freedom of movement. "Old women used to say, 'If you see clouds in the sky of Egypt, rain is expected in Gaza.' The good news is coming," he said, leaning against his taxi in the Bureij refugee camp and also listening to the news from Egypt on the radio.

In contrast, in the West Bank, where Hamas's rival Mr Abbas heads a self-ruled government, officials are watching the turmoil in Egypt with concern.

Mr Abbas stands to lose his main Arab patron if Mr Mubarak is weakened or pushed aside. Since becoming president in 2005, Mr Abbas has sought Mr Mubarak's backing for any major decision involving negotiations with Israel and is a frequent visitor in Cairo. Mr Abbas has also relied on Egypt as a go-between with Hamas.

Mr Abbas has avoided taking sides in public, only saying on Saturday that he is eager to see Egypt secure and stable.