From Occupied Palestine

Israel's vision: an unbreachable wall against terror
NICOLE GAOUETTE
Christian Science Monitor, 5 September 2003

Jerusalem and Ariel -- Zvi Weiss was returning from one last night of prayer at the Western Wall before his trip home to Brooklyn.

He remembers seeing three tired children sitting beside him, their mother squeezing her way to the back of the bus, then the light-obliterating roar.

Road map in peril as cease-fire ends\
NICOLE GAOUETTE
Christian Science Monitor, 22 August 2003

Jerusalem -- The shaky ceasefire sustaining the US-backed peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians formally ended Thursday after Israeli helicopter gunships fired on and killed a Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip.

Israel's new barrier cuts old ties
NICOLE GAOUETTE
Christian Science Monitor, 14 August 2003

It's no dream house, the cinderblock hut Sharif Omar now calls home, but he won't leave it anytime soon.

When the West Bank farmer and his wife married 36 years ago, they moved in with his brother. Mr. Omar promised one day to build her a house of her own. This year, he finished it, moved the family in and promptly left for this squat shed in his olive groves, not far from 31 other families camping on their own farms.

Behind the barrier
NICOLE GAOUETTE
The Christian Science Monitor, 8 August 2003

Qalqilya, West Bank -- Yusif Josef Ramsi is still farming, if you can call it that. The West Bank farmer, never a major landowner, once tended his seven-acre plot of fig and olive trees with pride.

Now, what's left of his patrimony sits in a few dozen black plastic buckets.

Donkey power is king on restricted West Bank
NICOLE GAOUETTE
Christian Science Monitor, 22 July 2003

Dhahiriyah and Halhul, West Bank -- Ayed Samamri sniffs the goaty fug of hay and dung, and grins. Around him, the Dhahiriyah animal market - a braying, bleating festival of capitalism - is booming.

The 'Palestinian Napoleon' behind Mideast cease-fire
NICOLE GAOUETTE
Christian Science Monitor, 3 July 2003

Jerusalem -- When the Israeli and Palestinian Authority prime ministers met Tuesday, they did so with an unprecedented display of bonhomie and some trusted ministers. But one man was missing - a man widely credited with engineering the Palestinian cease-fire that led to the meeting and generated momentum for the US-backed peace plan under discussion.

Back from the brink?
NICOLE GAOUETTE and CAMERON W. BARR
Christian Science Monitor, 11 October 2000

Jerusalem -- To judge from televised scenes of Israeli helicopters launching missiles and Palestinians resting on their funeral biers, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Middle East was at the brink of war.