Middle East

At a time when many women in Israel feel that their rights are under attack, these three — Dr Shikma Bressler, a particle physicist turned protest leader; Justice Esther Hayut, a daughter of Holocaust survivors who is the president of the Supreme Court; and Gali Baharav-Miara, a former civil servant who is the country’s first female attorney-general — are widely seen as the leading defenders of Israel’s democracy.

Critics of Israel’s bombardment say they face being sacked and are hounded by police

The town of Netivot has been left in shock after gunmen burst into the town, with anxious residents fearful for the future

A couple of skeletal slabs of concrete were all that remained of the outer wall of Jameela Abu Shallal’s two-floor family home in Balata on the edge of the city of Nablus. “They destroyed our house right over our heads,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.
Suddenly, a loud explosion boomed through the air. The Israelis were back.

At the Parents Circle meeting, there are around 50 bereaved families, both Palestinians and Israelis. Sitting in a large circle, everyone introduces themselves and says a sentence about why they are here. It is a grim roll call of personal tragedies going back decades: a father lost in the 1967 war; a brother shot in the 1973 war; a sibling whose body is still held by the enemy; a sister killed in a suicide bombing; a child murdered because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time; a baby poisoned with tear gas who died because his parents were blocked by soldiers from reaching the hospital.

“I didn’t just lose my brother in the Second Intifada, I lost my childhood,” says one Palestinian. A few speakers later, her words are echoed by an Israeli who feels the same.