Israeli policies on Palestinian residency have arbitrarily denied thousands of Palestinians the ability to live in, and travel to and from, the West Bank and Gaza, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Israel should immediately stop denying or cancelling the residency of Palestinians and close family members with deep ties to the West Bank and Gaza, and end blanket bans on processing their applications for residency.
Almost 1,100 Palestinians, over half of them children, were displaced due to home demolitions in the West Bank by Israeli forces in 2011 – over 80 per cent more than in the previous year – according to a United Nations report released today.
One used to be able to take the Hijaz railway from Akka to Jenin and then to Nablus. The railway, built by Sultan Abdel Hamid II at the turn of the twentieth century, was intended to consolidate his own power over the Ottoman Empire, but perhaps its more lasting impact was to unify the inhabitants of Palestine.
The Security Council members, including the United States, all condemned the Israeli settlements, and declared them illegal and illegitimate. Israel faced a scathing attack by all countries because of its policy in building settlements on West Bank lands, during an open discussion in the Security Council session on the current situation in the Middle East. They demanded that Israel stops all settlement activity on Palestinian lands including East Jerusalem.
Israeli forces opened fire on the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing two people and seriously injuring at least two others, witnesses and medics said. 
