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.”

Israel yesterday detained Jerusalem's top Muslim religious leader and questioned him over an alleged attack on Israelis visiting the Haram Al Sharif.

Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, the holy city's grand mufti, was taken into custody by Israeli police at his home and questioned for six hours at police headquarters before he was released without charge.

The rare move against a high-ranking religious figure in Jerusalem prompted an immediate response from the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, which until the 1967 Arab-Israeli war controlled the Haram Al Sharif, known to Jews as Temple Mount.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, immediately condemned Sheikh Hussein's detention, and demanded the grand mufti's immediate release. The "arrest represents an audacious challenge to freedom of worship", he said.

Jordan's prime minister, Abdullah Ensour, said his government might ask the United Nations Security Council to convene in emergency session to discuss the issue.

The lower house of the Jordanian parliament unanimously called for the expulsion of Israel's ambassador to Amman, Daniel Nevo, and started to draft a recommendation that the government annul the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty.

Mickey Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, said Sheikh Hussein was questioned in connection with "recent disturbances" on Haram Al Sharif that included "incitement, disturbances and public disorder". He gave no further detail.

An unnamed Israeli official said, however, that the sheikh was issued a warning and told to lower tensions after Muslim worshippers threw rocks and chairs at tourists visiting the hilltop compound on Tuesday, a day which Israelis commemorate the capture and "reuniting" of Jerusalem in 1967.

Palestinian youths reportedly clashed with Israeli police near the Haram Al Sharif, protesting against the mufti's detention.

The 35-acre Haram Al Sharif is one of the most contested religious sites in the world.

It is home to the Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third-holiest site. Jews revere the area as the site of the second temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70AD. Jewish tradition maintains that it is there that a third temple will be built.

Shortly before Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister in 2000, he visited the Haram Al Sharif with more than 1,000 security guards and declared that the "Temple Mount is in our hands".

That foray is not only credited with helping Mr Sharon win the premiership, it is also widely thought to have triggered the second intifada which began in 2000 and left about 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis dead before ending almost five years later.

Palestinians are hoping an agreement that allows United Nations cultural inspectors into Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem will leverage their historic claim to the city.

After years of negotiating, Israel agreed on Tuesday to allow a team from the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) to review its conservation of historic sites in Jerusalem's Old City. The Palestinians, in return, would temporarily postpone tabling resolutions critical of Israel at the UN agency.

The landmark agreement, brokered with support from the United States, Russia, Jordan, Brazil and Unesco's head, Irina Bokova, also reflects widespread concern that the divided city's iconic edifices - which are holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians - are not being preserved.

One senior Palestinian official expressed hope that the visit would yield broader international coordination in efforts to preserve and refurbish ancient buildings, churches and mosques in the Old City, which Unesco has listed as an "endangered" World Heritage site.

Citing what it calls the UN's bias, Israel has routinely denied Unesco delegations access to Jerusalem.

"This sets a precedent for both sides because before, the Israelis would just refuse any investigation like this," said the official, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state, yet they face restrictions and municipal neglect in the city that Israel annexed after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Since then, they have been forced to look on as Israeli authorities began transforming the city with settlements and archaeological projects emphasising Jewish history.

With Palestinians winning recognition as a non-member observer state in the UN General Assembly last November, the PLO hoped to win more influence over the city. Historic preservation was one such way.

"Now that we have more tools to leverage, Israeli diplomats have become more concerned," said the PLO official, who attributed the agreement to mounting Israeli concern over Palestinian threats to join more global organisations.

The Palestinians joined Unesco as full members in 2011 and have also considered membership in the International Criminal Court, where they could bring war crimes proceedings against Israel.

Omar Awadallah, head of UN affairs at the Palestinian Authority foreign ministry, said the Unesco team would examine the Old City's buildings, churches and 16th-Century Ottoman walls from May 19 to June 1.

The inspections would include the Haram Al Sharif, or Temple Mount, the Biblical location of Jewish temples and where tradition says the Prophet Mohammed started his ascent into heaven on a winged beast.

The Unesco team would examine the Mughrabi Ascent, through which Israeli Jews and other non-Muslims access the Haram Al Sharif. Its sand causeway collapsed more than a decade ago, and proposed Israeli renovations to the site have triggered Palestinian protests.

The Unesco team plans to present its findings and recommendations during the agency's June meeting in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, said Mr Awadallah. He referred to the Unesco visit as "a precedent in promoting Palestinian rights" in Jerusalem.

Palestinian officials would refrain from pursing five resolutions against Israel at Unesco until the autumn, when they would re-evaluate whether to table them, Mr Awadallah said. Those resolutions include condemnation of Israel's attempts to alter Palestinian school curricula in East Jerusalem, as well as proposed renovations to the Mughrabi Ascent and the Israeli prohibition of Palestinian students in Gaza from studying at West Bank universities.

The agreement follows efforts by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He pressured both parties to refrain from initiating "negative moves in international organisations", The New York Times reported yesterday.

Nimrod Barkan, Israel's Unesco ambassador, lauded the agreement as "the culmination of a joint Israeli-American effort", with Russia's help, to "try to move to depoliticise Unesco".

Israel has long accused Unesco of bias. In 1974, the agency stripped Israel of its membership over allegations of damage to the Haram Al Sharif during archaeological excavations.

The US and Israel protested against the Palestinian accession to Unesco by suspending their funding to the agency, which amounts to more than 22 per cent of its annual budget, crippling its activities worldwide.

Israel's refusal to allow Gazans to participate in the first marathon held in the West Bank yesterday tinged the event with politics that organisers sought to avoid.

Twenty-six Palestinians were informed last week that they could not exit the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip for Bethlehem, which hosted some 500 runners from more than 30 countries for the competition.

The Right to Movement Palestine Marathon, organised by two Danish women runners, was planned as an alternative to a United Nations-sponsored marathon in Gaza that was cancelled last month because the territory's Islamist Hamas rulers refused to allow women to participate.

Among the Gazans denied entry was the Olympian Nader Al Masri and Sanaa Abu Bahit, 29, a woman who planned on running in the UN event.

"This isn't supposed to be political," said Signe Fischer, one of the organisers. "It's just people encouraging other people to put on their shoes and run."

Several runners showed their solidarity with the Gazan athletes before the race with an announcement expressing regret about their inability to participate, she said, adding that a "lot of Palestinians and internationals today are running with their Gaza counterparts in mind".

Braving a cold rain, Abdel Nasser Awajneh, a Palestinian from Jericho, was first in the men's full marathon with a time of 3:09:47. He was followed by two other Palestinians, Moataz Almasalmi in second place and Vehia Al Jamal, in third.

In the women's race, Christine Gebler, from the Palestinian Territories, was first with a time of 3:36:37, followed by Emily Sargent-Beasely, from the US , and Alison Smith, from Britain, in third.

The event also included a half marathon as well as 10km and 5km runs.

Marathon runners had to do two laps of the course after organisers were not able to find an uninterrupted 42-kilometre stretch within Area A, the small portion of the Israeli-occupied West Bank which is under full Palestinian control.

The race was held the same day as the London Marathon. More than 35,000 runners observed 30 seconds of silence on the start line to remember those killed and injured by the blasts near the finish of the Boston Marathon on Monday.

The Palestinian Olympic Committee requested permission to travel to the West Bank from Israel on behalf of the 22 runners and four trainers.

Israel's defence ministry said it denied the request because the marathon "does not meet the criteria set in order to transfer from Gaza to the West Bank".

Israel has the right to deny such travel because Gaza is run by the Hamas "terror organisation [that] wages war against the state of Israel and its civilians", the defence ministry said.

Israel imposed a blockade in 2007 when Gaza came under the control of Hamas, which has a history of attacking Israelis.

Israel controls all crossings connecting Gaza and the West Bank and routinely forbids Palestinian travel between the two, denying them access to universities and family in the respective territories.

Officials from the West Bank's Palestinian Authority condemned Israel's decision to deny Gazans entry to the marathon, calling it discriminatory and a violation of international law. Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem are wanted for a Palestinian state but have remained under Israeli occupation since 1967.

"Israel cannot treat Gaza as if it's a separate entity," said Nour Odeh, spokeswoman for the PA. "It is not, and international law is clear about that."

In a memorandum dated May 2011, Israel's defence ministry laid out 16 conditions, such as medical treatment, for permitting travel from Gaza. Another permits travel to the West Bank and abroad for members of the Palestinian national football team.

Mr Masri, who competed in the 2008 Beijing Games, said he had not the faintest idea why marathon runners were excluded from that list. "We're not political but the occupation is blind to that," said the 33-year-old runner, who had been training for three months by running on Gaza's beach road.

"All I can say is that I'm sad."

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, yesterday said that a two-state peace solution between the Israelis and Palestinians must be reached within two years or the window of opportunity may be closed.

He said he had sensed a seriousness of purpose when he held talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the Middle East this month.

Testifying yesterday before the house foreign affairs committee, Mr Kerry said he would not publicly lay out a plan for peace in the Middle East. But he added that if nothing could be worked out over the next two years, the chance for a peaceful agreement establishing an independent Palestine might slip away.

His comments came on the day the departing Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister said that elections were the only way to unite rival leaders in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

In remarks broadcast on Palestinian radio stations, Salam Fayyad urged the leaders of the West Bank's dominant Fatah faction and their Hamas counterparts in Gaza to hold the national ballot stipulated in their stalled reconciliation agreement.

He described a proper election as the "the only way to reconstruct our political system and achieve our national goals". And he impressed upon listeners that reconciliation was a "cornerstone" for establishing a Palestinian state on the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

"Just like there can be no state without Jerusalem as its eternal capital, there can be no state without the Gaza Strip," he said.

The appeal by the former IMF economist followed his resignation as prime minister on Saturday, which has added more uncertainty to efforts by Washington to revive the peace process.

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the PA, reportedly wants to keep Mr Fayyad on as a caretaker premier for a few weeks as a gesture to Mr Kerry.

"It looks like the president will wait to see the result of the two months that Kerry has asked for, before he nominates a new prime minister," an official close to Mr Abbas said this week.

Admired by the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, and respected internationally, Mr Fayyad, a political independent, has not indicated when he intends to formally step aside.

He is widely believed to have resigned because of disputes with Fatah officials, including Mr Abbas, who chairs the faction, over his reform agenda and how to handle the PA's economic issues.

Mr Fayyad's call for Hamas-Fatah reconciliation may not sit well in the US and Israel.

Both countries classify the Palestinian Islamists as a terrorist group, and neither has accepted the reconciliation accord signed in May 2011 between Mr Abbas and the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal.

Since then, progress on implementing the agreement's terms – including holding elections – has been stymied in large part by factional bickering.

Animosity between the factions flared in 2007, when Hamas wrested control of Gaza from Fatah.