GAZA CITY: Filmmakers in Gaza have finished making what is believed to be the first Palestinian animated feature in 3D in a bid to show a fresh perspective on life through a child’s eyes. Called “The Scarecrow”, the 40-minute production tells the story of a nine-year-old orphan ...

RAMALLAH :  An Israeli military appeals court on Thursday ordered the release of two Palestinian prisoners held without trial since November, who had staged a three-month hunger strike, a prisoners' rights group and Israeli authorities said. Sarahna Amani, a spokesman for the Ramallah-based ...

JERUSALEM : Israeli police paraded a cuffed Palestinian teenager to protesters in what a human rights group charged Saturday was abuse of a “human shield” but an Israeli spokesman said was a move to calm violence.Defence for Children International-Palestine (DCI) posted a 76-second ...

RAMALLAH - Some 3,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails on Wednesday refused breakfast as part of a one-day hunger strike to mark Prisoners’ Day, an Israeli prison official said.Palestinians across the territories are attending marches and rallies as a show of solidarity with prisoners from the ...

RAMALLAH - The Palestinians were on Sunday mulling the prospect of a new prime minister after Salam Fayyad resigned following months of tension with president Mahmud Abbas.The resignation of the US-educated economist, who won international acclaim for his state-building efforts, came despite US ...

RAMALLAH (AFP) - Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad is to present his resignation to president Mahmud Abbas, an official said. Abbas and Fayyad are known to have been at odds over a raft of issues but their relationship took a nose dive last month when Fayyad accepted his finance ...

ADEL SAFTY The word ‘land’ may be the shortest summary of the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When the early Zionist leaders were looking for a country to colonise and make a Jewish homeland, they considered Argentina, Uganda and Cyprus. But these countries were already ...

RAMALLAH  - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas may fire prime minister Salam Fayyad, a Fatah member said, as the party criticised the premier’s government as being “improvised and confused.” Abbas “is leaning towards dismissing Fayyad from the head of the government and ...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Oscar-nominated Palestinian director Emad Burnat lamented that US border guards detained him and his family at the Los Angeles airport as they arrived for the awards show.Burnat, whose “Five Broken Cameras” is up for best documentary at Sunday’s 85th Academy ...

HEBRON  - A 21-year-old Palestinian woman died after being hit in the face by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank on Wednesday, medics said, with witnesses saying she was shot by soldiers.Lubna Hanash was killed in a shooting outside a college near Al-Arrub refugee camp, eight kilometres (five ...

RAMALLAH  - The Palestinians on Wednesday reacted furiously after a controversial Israeli settlement plan passed a first hurdle, warning that the project would end all hopes for peace. Israel’s plan for construction in a strip of West Bank land outside Jerusalem called E1 has sparked a ...

Stuart ReigeluthThe General Assembly vote in favour of Palestine becoming an observer ‘state’, instead of an observer ‘entity’ within the United Nations is a diplomatic exercise showing vocabulary skills. It is very simply a change of words and that is all it is. This place ...

The UN General Assembly has duly voted for the admission of Palestine to observer status. It would join the Palestine Liberation Organisation with this status, though the vote once again showed that Israel remains adamantly opposed to Palestinian independence, and that it continues to enjoy the ...

UNITED NATIONS - The Palestinian Authority has submitted a draft resolution to the UN General Assembly that would recognise the Palestinians as a nonmember state of the UN.The resolution would have the 193-member Assembly decide “to accord to Palestine Nonmember Observer State status in the ...

CAIRO  - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has announced that the Palestinian Authority will present its bid for non-state UN membership, despite US and Israeli opposition.Following talks with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi in Cairo, “it has been agreed that the request will be ...

RAMALLAH - The Palestinians will submit a bid to the General Assembly for non-state membership of the United Nations later this month, president Mahmud Abbas said on Sunday. "We're going to the United Nations in November 2012, not 2013, or 2014," Abbas said at an event commemorating the eighth ...

GAZA CITY  - A Palestinian teenager died on Thursday after being hit by bullets fired from an Israeli helicopter near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, a medical official told AFP. Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, named the victim as 13-year-old Hmeid ...

WASHINGTON - A fiscal crisis facing the Palestinian Authority will deepen unless foreign donors increase their support and Israel lifts a web of restrictions in the West Bank that hinder private investment needed to drive economic growth, the World Bank said. Issued ahead of a meeting of donor ...

GAZA CITY (AFP) - The boxy little white and blue vehicle draws plenty of curious stares as it chugs down the street. But this is no golf cart - it’s Gaza’s first hand-built electric car. It is the latest creation of Munther al-Qassas, a 32-year-old taxi driver from Gaza City who was ...

KARACHI - Palestine Foundation (PLF) of Pakistan will observe Palestinian Martyrs Day on first Friday of Ramazan. According to a statement issued here on Monday, the PLF office-bearers said that Palestine and Al Quds had been under Zionist Israeli regime occupation. They said that dozens of ...

RAMALLAH  - Some 1,600 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails are due to begin a mass hunger strike on Tuesday to protest their conditions, a Palestinian minister said. “There are 1,600 Palestinian prisoners who will start a hunger strike on Tuesday in order to improve their ...

GAZA CITY  - Israel on Sunday deported a Palestinian woman prisoner who spent 43 days on hunger-strike to the Gaza Strip, under a deal that has been criticised by Palestinians. Eyewitnesses and Palestinian officials told AFP that Hanaa Shalabi entered Gaza via Erez border crossing, and was ...

RAMALLAH  - A young Palestinian was shot and wounded on Saturday in a clash with Jewish settlers in the West Bank, Palestinian security sources said. The trouble erupted when a group of around 40 Israeli settlers entered the Burqin area in the north of the occupied territory and clashed with ...

KARACHI - Palestine Foundation Pakistan has announced that Palestinian ambassador to Pakistan Hazem Abu Shanab will receive the participants of Global March to Jerusalem at Wahga Border on March 10 (today). The announcement was made at a press briefing here at a local hotel. The PLF central ...

STUART LITTLEWOODThere are few crimes more despicable than stealing your neighbour’s water, and polluting what’s left, then watching him and his children suffer thirst, disease and ruin. Most of us would want nothing to do with the perpetrators of such evil.British Water describes ...

RAMALLAH  - A Palestinian woman freed in a prisoner swap with Israel but later re-arrested has gone on hunger strike, a Palestinian lawyer said on Sunday.Hanaa al-Shalabi has been on hunger strike since the day of her arrest on February 16, when she was ordered detained without trial for six ...

JERUSALEM  - A Palestinian prisoner has ended his 66-day hunger strike over his detention without charge under a deal that will see him released in April, Palestinian and Israeli officials told AFP on Tuesday.“The Israeli court decided to release Khader Adnan on April 17 and based on ...

At least eight Palestinian children were killed on Thursday when an Israeli truck hit a Palestinian school bus on a road in the West Bank, Israeli police said. A spokesman for Israel's emergency services put the injury toll at up to 40, and said the wounded had been taken to hospitals in both ...

JERUSALEM  - A UN envoy called on Israel on Friday to do all it can for the health of a Palestinian prisoner who has been on hunger strike for the past 55 days in protest at his detention without charge.Robert Serry, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said he ...

PARK CITY, Utah  - Palestinian filmmaker Emad Burnat spent five years filming his village’s resistance to Israeli settlers — and brought his intimate but powerful documentary to the Sundance film festival.Co-directed with Israeli Guy Davidi, “5 broken cameras” was shown ...