Six weeks after taking office, the Western-shunned Hamas government presides over Palestinian areas on the brink of collapse due to the stop in international aid flows. Long queues at empty petrol stations in the West Bank were the latest sign on Wednesday of the crisis after an Israeli company stopped deliveries the day before.
Around the outskirts of the Israeli village of Kfar Maimon, police vehicles and water cannons patrol. Tens of thousands of would-be marchers, angered at the settlement pull-out plan due to swing into action on August 17, spent the night in Kfar Maimon following the first showdown with the Israeli authorities on Monday.
After three weeks of bloody conflict in Najaf, fresh fighting in Baghdad’s Sadr City suburb and a death toll creeping into the high hundreds have tarnished the reputation of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr among many Iraqis, even though anti-United States feelings still run high.