RAMALLAH, Jul 2 (IPS) - The future of Palestinian unity talks is far more complex than the bitter rivalry, bloodshed and division which represent the yawning chasm separating Palestine's two main political factions, Hamas and Fatah.

RAMALLAH, Jul 1 (IPS) - Twenty-one international peace activists were seized by Israeli naval frigates in international waters Tuesday as their boat 'The Spirit of Humanity' tried to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza.

GAZA CITY, Jul 1 (IPS) - "They told us 'go west or we will shoot you'," says Ashraf Sadallah. "Initially, we refused, so they began shooting very close all around our boat."

JERUSALEM, Jun 30 (IPS) - The concerted effort of international human rights activists to rein in violations of laws of war was given a major impetus when Human Rights Watch researchers presented a report Tuesday on the unbridled use by the Israeli military of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCLAV), commonly known as drones, during Israel's 22-day assault on Hamas in Gaza at the beginning of the year.

SAKHNIN, Israel, Jun 30 (IPS) - In this Arab town in northern Israel, Michael Zantovsky, the Czech Republic ambassador, is throwing an end-of-term party, an event markedly different from customary diplomatic bashes.

GAZA CITY, Jun 29 (IPS) - They are little white, yellow or green pills and are available almost anywhere. At the pharmacies or in the market, they are accessible, addictive and cheap.

ANKARA, Jun 29 (IPS) - Less than two years after its discreet sealing, the truce between ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) seems to have ended.

JERUSALEM, Jun 28 (IPS) - Under a complex twin-pronged initiative from the U.S. and Egypt, Israel's hard- line government is moving towards backtracking on two major planks of its policy in the occupied territories - resisting demands for a blanket freeze on all settlement building in the West Bank, and acquiescing in the end of its tight siege of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

CAIRO, Jun 26 (IPS) - Egypt finally appointed an ambassador to Iraq earlier this month after four years without diplomatic representation in Baghdad. While the last year has seen other Arab capitals do likewise, some critics question the wisdom of the move in light of Iraq's still volatile security situation.

WASHINGTON, Jun 26 (IPS) - As the political crisis that erupted after Iran?s Jun. 12 elections enters its third week, it is becoming evident that this crisis will have repercussions in many parts of the Middle East - and far beyond.

RAMALLAH, Jun 25 (IPS) - The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel has accused the Israeli security forces of deliberately shackling Palestinian prisoners in a painful and dangerous manner, amounting to a form of torture.

BEIRUT, Jun 25 (IPS) - Christian heads of both the majority and the opposition have raised their stakes ahead of the imminent formation of the Lebanese government headed by Sunni leader Saad Hariri.

WASHINGTON, Jun 24 (IPS) - After informing the Syrian embassy in Washington on Tuesday night, the U.S. State Department announced on Wednesday that President Barack Obama will be sending an ambassador to Damascus for the first time since 2005.

JERUSALEM, Jun 24 (IPS) - A paralysing equation has long bedevilled would-be Middle East peacemakers: either, go directly to negotiating the kernel issues of the Israel-Palestine conflict - borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem - and leave, in the context of a full peace, the thorny question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to fall naturally into place. Or, tackle the settlements head-on, thereby opening the way for a peace drive.

RAMALLAH, Jun 23 (IPS) - Egyptian mediators have set Jul. 7 as deadline for final Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo. The Egyptians say time is running out, and if there is no progress in July, they will no longer be prepared to arbitrate.

CAIRO, Jun 21 (IPS) - Differences over sharing of Nile waters may have deepened following the failure among the nine countries along the Nile to come to an agreement.

RAMALLAH, Jun 20 (IPS) - Forty international aid agencies and NGOs have released a joint statement condemning Israel's blockade of Gaza, to mark the second anniversary of the coastal territory being hermetically sealed off from the outside world.

TYRE, Jun 20 (IPS) - A large highway cuts through the green hills connecting Lebanon's south to the Mediterranean Sea. Here, nestled amid banana trees and colourful bougainvillea bushes, lies the city of Tyre, a bastion of the Shia community and a significant base of the Lebanese opposition. Now, following the parliamentary elections and the victory of the March 14 political group, Shias of the south are asking what lies in store for them.

WASHINGTON, Jun 19 (IPS) - Pres. Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and peace envoy Sen. George Mitchell have been moving steadily ahead with the campaign Obama launched on his first day in the White House, to broker a comprehensive and sustainable Arab-Israeli peace.

GAZA CITY, Jun 18 (IPS) - 'Biddun mey, fish heyya', they say in Arabic for a universal truth: 'Without water, there is no life'.

WASHINGTON, Jun 17 (IPS) - Gaza, South Africa and Thailand are among the world's worst places to be a refugee, according to the latest annual World Refugee Survey released here Wednesday by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).

WASHINGTON, Jun 17 (IPS) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has laid out his terms for peace in the Middle East. In a highly anticipated speech at Israel?s Bar-Ilan University last Sunday, Netanyahu said ? for the first time ? that he was willing to consider a "demilitarised" Palestinian state, existing side by side with Israel.

WASHINGTON, Jun 16 (IPS) - Forty-two million people were forcibly uprooted by conflict and persecution worldwide in 2008, said a new report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released Tuesday.

RAMALLAH, Jun 15 (IPS) - Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, and a close confidant of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's foreign policy speech Sunday night as a big zero.

TEL AVIV, Jun 15 (IPS) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's much anticipated policy speech about his peace intentions was suffused with peace rhetoric, but it was starkly short on a peace vision.

WADI QADOUM, East Jerusalem, Jun 13 (IPS) - "What are you doing here?" The motorist in the battered white Volvo stops to ask us alongside an overflowing rubbish cart. Residents of this poor Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem have been burning garbage in a bid to clear the uncollected mounds.

RAMALLAH, Jun 12 (IPS) - Chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat believes Palestinians are politically in their strongest position ever in their decades-long conflict with the Israelis.

PARIS, Jun 11 (IPS) - The contest for a new UNESCO director-general is now wide open with the addition of last-minute nominees for the post, following the controversy around leading contender Farouk Hosny.

CAIRO, Jun 11 (IPS) - The historic speech U.S. President Barack Obama delivered in Cairo Jun. 4 continues to stir people around the Middle East. Questions are raised what it will mean on the ground in the region.

WASHINGTON, Jun 10 (IPS) - Former U.S. senator George Mitchell is due to arrive in Syria?s capital, Damascus, Friday on his first visit there since being named Pres. Barack Obama?s special envoy for Arab-Israeli peace.