My apologies to all those who recently left comments on my blog and didn’t have them appear. My SpamKarma plugin ate them up and I am currently trying to recover them. So…my bad.

Article of Interest at BBC News: Tears & Blame Amid Gaza Dead. Quoting: “My cousin Rami has a daughter of six months old. She was cut into pieces. They had to collect her body pieces and put them in a plastic bag. I couldn’t recognise her.”

Read my latest Global Voices round up of Palestinian & Pro-Palestinian blogs, and their reactions to the recent Beit Hanoun Massacre. The world has got to wake up!

An interesting piece in Reuters today outlines the historic role of the Hashemites in Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock and the future of that on going dynasty.

Global Voices: One week after the Israeli army brutally attacked a weekly non-violent legal demonstration against the wall in the village of Bilâ??in, August 18th saw yet another black and blue protest. ISM reports that this time the army showed a greater sense of preparation as they added water cannons to their arsenal of rubber bullets and sound grenades. The cannons fired blue colored water on the demonstrators resulting in burns and skin irritation, stirring questions of whether the water had been mixed with chemicals. [Read More]

Global Voices: August 11th saw another weekly non-violent protest in Bilâ??in take a wrong turn as the Israeli army attacked protesters with rubber bullets and sound grenades as they marched toward the Separation Wall. [continue reading]

Article of Interest: International and regional aid carried to Beirut through the Jordanian air force while the city’s field hospital has treated some 7,000 people. [LA Times]

Article of Interest: “You are a Christian?” a foreign tourist inquires with marked disbelief of a Palestinian tour guide in Bethlehem. “When did you convert?” This response by foreigners, Christian or not, is unfortunately not uncommon in Palestine. [continue]

Global Voices: While the flames of war engulf Lebanon, Gaza is still under attack. Many of the victims have been Palestinian children, some barely a year old; and as their families prepare to burry them Haitham Sabbah asks the fundemental question: â??How shall we forget? How shall we forgive?â? [continue reading]

Global Voices: The word ‘peace’ has never seemed further from the recent realities that have gripped the region. Instead, the word ‘conflict’ seems to dominate the undertones of every blogger whoâ??s been keeping track of the developments in Palestine; and even ‘conflict’ feels like a euphemism these days. - Naseem Tarawnah

[continue reading]

Article of Interest: Nine months before he invaded Lebanon, Ariel Sharon let me in on his grand design for solving all the problems of this region. It was mind-boggling. He did not ask me to keep it secret, just not to attribute it to him directly. I published it accordingly. [article]

Global Voices: The shelling of a Gaza beach few days ago which resulted in several deaths, continues to be a priority story for Palestinian bloggers this week; specifically the unresolved issue of responsibility. [read]

Global Voices: Tragedy and shock has captured the minds and hearts of Palestinian bloggers this week. The Israeli shelling of Gaza which lead to the death of several civilians including women and children, has some calling it Bloody Friday…[read]

Two commenters informed me recently about the pop-ups from webstats4u and I’ve switched over to statcounter. So props to Qwaider and RocketRay for keeping me informed and apologies for any inconvenience it may have caused my visitors.

Global Voices: From barber shops and strawberry fields to politics and the lives of students behind walls, the Palestinian blogosphere this week has many stories to tell. [read]

Ziyad Hmeidan is a student at Birzeit University and a Palestinian human rights worker from Bethlehem. He has been a fieldworker with human rights organisation Al-Haq since 2000. Sadly, Ziyad has been subject to Israeli administrative detention - detention without charge - for a year now. [read] [sign the petition]