Tens of thousands of Palestinians protested Wednesday on the 65th anniversary of the “Nakba” or the Day of Catastrophe, which marks their displacement after the creation of the state of Israel.

May 15 is the day Palestinians choose to commemorate the displacement of hundreds of thousands of their kinsman in the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948.

Protesters chanted, “The right of return will not die.”

Palestinians mark Nakba (Day of Catastrophe) with protests

Photos by AFP/Getty Images

JERUSALEM — Israel and Gaza have exchanged some of the heaviest airstrikes since the truce negotiated in November which ended Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense on the Strip.

The Israel Air Force launched its first airstrikes on the Gaza Strip since the cease-fire late on Tuesday night, responding to three mortar shells which were fired at the Negev on Tuesday.

Palestinian militants fired two more rockets from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, which exploded on open ground near the Israeli town of Sderot, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Israel, Gaza exchange heaviest strikes since cease-fire

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The helipad at the Muqataa, the memorial mausoleum where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is buried in Ramallah, has been swept clean in anticipation of next week’s arrival of US President Barack Obama.

But in Ramallah, subdued complacency combined with low expectations will greet the president as he arrives for talks with the Palestinian leadership.

Obama is expected to spend about five hours here on a three-day visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, although recent reports suggest the president could skip Ramallah altogether, meeting President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem.

At the upmarket Plaza Mall, more than half of the shoppers interviewed expressed surprise that Obama was even coming.

Palestinians hold low expectations for Obama visit

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

JERUSALEM — A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed near the city of Ashkelon in southern Israel, the first breach of a cease fire since the last Gaza conflict.

“The rocket fell early in the morning near Ashkelon and did some damage to a road, without hurting anyone,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.

The incident is the first attack since the end of an Israeli operation in late November, when more than a thousand rockets were fired into Israeli territory from the Gaza strip in reaction to the assassination of a Hamas military commander.

GlobalPost Senior Correspondent in Israel, Noga Tarnopolsky, said the al-Aksa Martyr’s Brigade, the armed branch of Fatah — the political party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — has taken responsibility for the act.

Israel: Gaza rocket lands in Ashkelon

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

JERUSALEM — An Israeli soldier provoked public outcry after he reportedly posted an Instagram photo that appears to show a Palestinian boy in the crosshairs of a rifle.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces told GlobalPost that Mor Ostrovski, 20, an Israeli soldier in a sniper unit, said he did not take the original picture, that he found it on the internet.

GlobalPost Senior Correspondent in Israel, Noga Tarnopolsky, said the Israeli Defense Forces have faced several problems with soldiers posting controversial content to social media sites.

“This is part of the brave new world in which young soldiers who have no memory of a world before social media hold in their hands major responsibility for the lives of people — including their privacy,” Tarnopolsky said. “The reaction is significant and the punishment is serious.”

Israeli soldier posts photo of child in crosshairs

JERUSALEM — President Barack Obama won’t be bringing a peace initiative with him on his first presidential visit to Israel scheduled for the spring, the White House said on Wednesday.

He will visit for three days in March, when he’ll also spend a few hours in the Palestinian Authority.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the trip was not connected with restarting the Middle East peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, Haaretz reported. 

US Ambassador Dan Shapiro told Israel’s Channel 2 News, “These are two leaders starting out on new terms. To some degree they have to chart out how to work together.”

Obama won’t take peace initiative to Israel

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

Hundreds of thousands of Fatah supporters rallied in Gaza to mark the organization’s 48th anniversary on Friday.

Hamas, Fatah’s rival movement which governs Gaza, allowed the rally to take place.

More: Gaza celebrates Fatah anniversary (PHOTOS)

ASHKELON, Israel — At a hotel here Friday morning, two cheery Swiss tourists had the drill down, shuffling between their room and a bomb shelter five times without complaint.

Israeli air force jets roared overhead and the muffled explosions of anti-rocket batteries could be heard at regular intervals. “I don’t mind at all,” Attila Diamand said. “I was here visiting a kibbutz 30 years ago and we were attacked then, too. This is just the same. It’s fine.”

One rocket that Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system failed to intercept landed in a nearby parking lot.

Read the rest at Global Post

TEL AVIV, Israel — Gloria Gaynor’s anthem “I Will Survive” is never out of place in a gay setting, but something about it was different on this particular night.

The words were coming through in Arabic instead of English, the uplifting disco beat resounding against the ancient walls of the club housed in a mixed neighborhood where the Arab city of Jaffa blends into the edges of modern Tel Aviv.

Conflict still rules the region, a complex and bloody dispute about land, history and religion decades in the making, but at the Palestinian Queer Party, music takes precedence and peace rules the room.

Held every six weeks or so, the party demonstrates what is possible with gays in charge, say those who attend.The majority of the crowd at the party are gay Palestinians living within the borders set after Israel’s victory over Arab forces in 1948 — officially called Arab-Israelis — but about a third are Israeli Jews. West Bank Palestinians have also been known to cross the separation wall to mingle and dance here, risky a trip as that might be. Once they are among fellow gays, these Palestinians can often hide from Israeli authorities in plain sight.

“If gays were controlling the world, we wouldn’t have any more war,” says Yoni Schoenfeld, the openly gay editor-in-chief of Bamahane, the official magazine of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), sitting in his office in Tel Aviv and commenting unofficially.

Tel Aviv has been voted the most gay-friendly city in the world and has even been called the “Mecca” for gay Palestinians, but rights advocates say the good press is actually a mask covering Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in general, considered by many human rights organizations and observers to be a persecuted group.

(Continue reading — Gay Palestinians caught in the middle of the conflict)

This picture taken on December 2, 2010, shows a Palestinian worker cleaning the Tree of Life mosaic inside one of the rooms at the ancient Hisham Palace in the West Bank city of Jericho. The U.S. cut funding to UNESCO Monday after the body granted membership to Palestine. (Photo by Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images)