Hazel Ward

The Palestinians will take their long march for statehood to the gates of the UN next week in a bid to have their state accepted as a full member.

There was outrage on Tuesday after a former Israeli soldier posted on Facebook pictures of herself with blindfolded Palestinian prisoners.

Menahem Froman is one of the few Israelis to have dared sit down with arch-enemy Hamas. But he’s not just any Israeli. He is a Jewish settler and a rabbi who lives in the West Bank. Last month, fear struck deep in the heart of Israel when the radical Islamist movement won a landslide victory in the Palestinian elections.

Israeli forces were set for a showdown on Thursday with the final hard core of Gaza Strip settlers, surrounding synagogues where thousands of religious Jews had taken refuge as the country struggled to absorb the traumatic impact of ending its 38-year occupation of Gaza.