Mehdi Lebouachera

On the border between Gaza and Egypt, dozens of people are digging and clawing, by shovel and hand, the mounds of rubble left by Israeli bombings.

In the skies above Gaza, an Israeli drone circles slowly overhead before its distant buzz is drowned out by the whistling of a missile. "You see, this is what our life has become," says Abdallah as he watches the missile explode nearby in a massive cloud of dust.

The discovery of deadly bird flu in both Israel and the Palestinian territories is pushing the two sides to work together despite plummeting relations as Hamas prepares for government. Israel confirmed on Thursday that the H5N1 strain that is dangerous to humans had been found in poultry in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

Judges, prosecutors, attorneys, even law clerks and accountants involved in cases linked to Saddam Hussein’s decades of rule in Iraq live in constant fear of being targeted for death. Last week’s murder of Saadoun Janabi, attorney for one of Saddam’s seven co-defendants, points to the delicate issue of protecting the hundreds of people involved in the case.