In the heart of a city with 160,000 Palestinians, Israel maintains a Jewish settlement with 800 people. To protect them, the Israeli military has established a massive system of guard posts, checkpoints and road closures since 2001.
More than 1,800 Palestinian shops have closed and several thousand people have been driven from their homes. The once flourishing gold market is now blocked with barbed wire and choked with weeds.
"For years, Israel has severely oppressed Palestinians living in the center of the city," notes B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, in a recent report.
The two Israels
One-year-old Mohammed Bassiouni died of exposure to the cold on Tuesday. It was his first birthday.That...
Casualty counts in the last 24 hours: Over the past 24 hours, the bodies of 15...
The death of a man who was being held at a federal detention camp in Texas...
US civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin, arrested at age 15 for refusing to give up her...
