Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them.

In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B.

The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories).

In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long.

The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.

John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector.

The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace.

Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago.

Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid.

Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority".

Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations.

"Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."

Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.

“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.

Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.

“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”

Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.

“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”

He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”

Illegal annexation

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.

“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.

Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.

Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

Extreme poverty

Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.

While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.

“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.

“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.

“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.

Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.

Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.

Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank

Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.

“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.

Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.

To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.

It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.

“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).

Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”

Dozens of Palestinians enraged by France's sympathy for an Israeli soldier held by Gaza militants ambushed the French foreign minister's motorcade in the Gaza Strip yesterday, pelting it with eggs and hurling a shoe that narrowly missed hitting her.

The protesters — relatives of Palestinians held in Israeli jails — accosted the convoy of Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie because they mistakenly believed she had called the captivity of Israeli Sgt. Gilad Schalit a "war crime."

Schalit, 24, is an Israeli-French dual national. France has repeatedly called for his release since militants linked to Gaza's ruling Hamas group seized him in a cross-border raid in June 2006.

The demonstrators were lying in wait yesterday on the only road leading into Gaza from Israel through the Erez Crossing when Alliot-Marie's motorcade entered. Some jumped on the vehicle and others carried posters bearing her photograph emblazoned with a red no-entry sign and the words, "Get out of Gaza."

Hamas police dispersed the protesters, but others gathered outside a United Nations office in Gaza City that was her first stop in the Palestinian territory, and later followed her to a nearby hospital, pelting her convoy with eggs. AP Television footage showed Alliot-Marie narrowly dodging a shoe thrown by a protester as she climbed into a jeep under heavy guard.

The "war crime" remark had actually been made by Schalit's father after meeting the French minister a day earlier in his campaign to win release of his son.

Alliot-Marie — the highest-level French official to visit the Hamas-ruled territory since 2005 — made no public statement Thursday after meeting with the soldier's parents in Jerusalem. But Noam Schalit said the minister had called on Hamas to let the Red Cross visit his son for the first time, and referred to his capture as a "war crime."

Palestinians linked the comments to Alliot-Marie, provoking the fury of prisoners' families. Israel holds thousands of Palestinian prisoners in its jails, and their fate is a hot-button issue in Palestinian society because nearly all families can count members who have served time in Israeli prisons.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the statements attributed to Alliot-Marie reflected a "total bias toward Israel" and ignored the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. "They are the true prisoners of war," he said.

After the attack on her convoy, a French foreign ministry spokesman said Alliot-Marie was not the source of the comments.

"She is in Gaza today precisely to mark France's engagement in favor of the Gazan population," ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

France's economic envoy to the Mideast peace process, Valerie Hoffenberg, was struck in the head in the fray and was taken to an Israeli hospital for examination.

Speaking after being discharged from Barzilai Medical Center in the southern city of Ashkelon, Hoffenberg said: "There was a lot of people, a lot of violence and I was hit on the head. I don't know exactly how it happened. ... I started to vomit so I had to get to the hospital."

The hospital's deputy director, Dr. Ron Lobel, described the injury as "very slight."

France, a former colonial power in the Mideast and North Africa, traditionally has had strong ties with the Arab world. But French President Nicolas Sarkozy has demonstrated greater sympathy for Israel and its analysis of Mideast geopolitics than his predecessor, Jacques Chirac.

At a French cultural center in Gaza, Alliot-Marie called for the establishment of a Palestinian state and security for Israel. She also called on Israel to fully lift all restrictions on people and goods coming in and out of Gaza.

However, in keeping with the policy of the European Union, which considers Hamas a terrorist organization, Alliot-Marie did not meet with Hamas officials during her half-day visit.

In a separate and apparently unrelated development on Friday, Osama bin Laden demanded that France withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in exchange for the release of at least seven French hostages being held by groups associated with al-Qaida.

"The exit of your hostages out of the hands of our brothers depends on the exit of your troops from Afghanistan," bin Laden said in an audio message broadcast by Al-Jazeera television.

France has about 3,850 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO mission fighting the Taliban. Sarkozy has said his nation remains undaunted in its role to help stabilize Afghanistan.

GAZA CITY - Israeli aircraft struck two targets in the Gaza Strip and a Gaza militant died in a clash with troops on the border yesterday, as an official of the moderate Palestinian government accused Hamas of trying to boost hawkish candidates in Israel's election.

The violence on the eve of the vote occurred as Egyptian mediators continued their efforts to cement a long-term cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, after the three weeks of intense fighting that racked the coastal territory last month.

Israel's military said the two air strikes early in the day targeted militant positions and were a response to rocket fire from Gaza aimed at southern Israel on Sunday.

The military also said soldiers spotted an armed militant trying to sneak into Israel from Gaza overnight and opened fire, after which a bomb belt the man was wearing detonated. The militant group Islamic Jihad said that one of its fighters had been killed, but blamed an air strike.

Riad Malki, foreign minister in the moderate Palestinian government based in the West Bank, charged that Gaza's Hamas fighters were firing rockets into Israel in hopes of influencing today's national election.

He said Hamas didn't want to see a pro-peace government elected in Israel because it would pursue a political deal with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Islamic militant group "wants instability in the region," Malki said during a visit to Poland. Abbas's government is "very much worried" that the rocket attacks might "really push Israeli public opinion and the voters to vote for an anti-peace government," Malki told reporters in Warsaw.

Citing security concerns, Israel imposed a closure on the West Bank during the voting, banning Palestinians from entering Israel. A military statement said exceptions would be made for humanitarian cases. Gaza Palestinians are barred from Israel under a longstanding order.

The violence coincided with stepped-up efforts to strengthen the shaky cease-fire that ended Israel's devastating offensive. Israel unilaterally ended its offensive Jan. 18 and Hamas announced its own cease-fire the same day, but clashes have continued. In talks being mediated by Egypt, Hamas is seeking to get Gaza's blockaded border crossings open, while Israel wants an end to arms smuggling into the territory and the return of a soldier captured in June 2006.

A delegation from Hamas was in Damascus yesterday to consult with the Islamic movement's exiled leadership.

Local banks in Gaza, under pressure from Israeli sanctions, are running out of cash and desperate Palestinians lined up at branches Monday hoping to pull money out of frozen accounts.

But most banks have sharply curtailed withdrawals over the past two weeks and some have posted signs telling customers they cannot take out any more money. The U.N. stopped distributing cash handouts to Gaza's poorest last week.

Economists and bank officials are warning that tens of thousands of civil servants will not be able to cash paychecks next month.

"No society can operate without money, but that's the situation we are reaching in Gaza," said economist Omar Shaban.

The Israeli shekel is a widely used currency in the Gaza Strip, and the territory needs at least 400 million shekels, or about $100 million, each month in new currency to replace aging notes and to pay salaries.

The main source of currency is the moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' government in the West Bank, which sends in currency shipments each month to pay its civil servants. The government dominated by the Fatah faction still claims authority over Gaza, despite losing control of the territory last year to the rival Hamas militant group.

Israel has not allowed cash shipments since October, part of a series of sanctions against Hamas since the group seized power from Fatah in June 2007. Israel tightened the blockade earlier this month in response to renewed rocket attacks out of Gaza, virtually sealing the crossings since the latest outbreak of violence.

But it opened the crossings Monday for the first time in weeks, allowing fuel and humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

Mahmoud Khazandar, head of the gas station owners' association, said Israel resumed pumping some diesel fuel to Gaza's only power plant. He said he did not know how much EU-funded fuel was being shipped. Fuel had last been shipped to the power plant Nov. 11, but the supply only kept it running for two days.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak also ordered the crossings to open to allow food and medicine in, his office said. It was unclear how much aid was going into Gaza or when the deliveries would actually be made.

Israel stopped cash shipments, fearing Hamas would use money to fund attacks. But the cash shortage has little effect on Hamas, which smuggles money into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt and does not deal with the formal banking system. The militant group distributes cash to its own loyalists and the thousands of people it employs.

Shaban said the money shortage has worsened because residents tend to keep savings stashed at home, rather than in banks. Gaza businessmen pay in cash for goods imported from Israel, another drain on currency. Gaza's tunnel smugglers, who bring fuel and other goods into Gaza from Egypt, also pay for purchases in shekels.

Little money comes into the territory, meanwhile, because Israel has banned exports.

Jihad al-Wazir, of the Palestinian Monetary Authority in the West Bank, said his agency has asked Western officials to pressure Israel to allow the money in time to pay December salaries. Mideast envoy Tony Blair and the World Bank have also contacted Israel about the issue.

The cash crunch is the latest shortage of essential supplies in Gaza. Israel and Egypt's tightened blockade have caused widespread power blackouts and severe shortfalls of cooking gas and flour.

Israeli defense officials did not rule out further cash transfers, but said nothing could be delivered while fighting persists. Shlomo Dror, an Israel Defense Ministry spokesman, questioned the seriousness of the shortage.

"We are used to the Palestinians inventing things and we are looking into their claim," Dror said.

The crunch has made life a misery for some 40,000 of the territory's public servants, whose salaries are deposited into bank accounts by the West Bank government. Some residents head to the banks almost daily to withdraw their salaries in drips.

"I'm begging the bank to give me shekels," said public servant Shawkat Othman, who lined up at a bank for four hours this week, waiting to withdraw 700 shekels — about $175.

Chris Gunness, spokesman for the U.N.'s Relief and Works Agency, said the agency halted cash handouts to 98,000 of Gaza's poorest residents last week. Gunness said they could not obtain a daily sum of 270,000 shekels ($67,000) to make the distributions.

ATMs throughout Gaza City still dispense U.S. dollars. But most Gaza residents try avoid withdrawing dollars because money changers are expensive. Instead, Gazans deal in tattered, greasy Israeli notes. Residents mostly use cash — few stores accept credit cards.

Instead of harming Hamas, the cash shortage seems to be hurting Abbas' West Bank government, which needs to pay salaries to shore up support for his rule.

"The absence of shekels in Gaza is weakening one of the few tools left to (the Abbas government) that it could use to have influence in Gaza," said Shaban, the economist. "And that is salaries to thousands of public servants."

The Hamas government announced Tuesday that it will not permit thousands of striking teachers to return to their jobs, further heightening tensions with its political rivals in the West Bank.

The strike was called Aug. 24 by the West Bank-based teachers' union. It was seen, in part, as an attempt to disrupt life in Gaza and weaken Hamas, which seized control by force in 2007 and defeated troops loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Most of Gaza's 10,000 public school teachers are still paid by the Abbas government.

Despite the strike, Hamas kept schools running and hired some 2,200 new teachers and administrators.

Deputy Education Minister Yousef Ibrahim of Hamas said in a statement Tuesday that striking teachers will not be allowed to return to work. He also said legal action would be taken against those on strike, but did not explain further.

In the West Bank, union chief Bassam Zakarneh said Tuesday's decision "reflects the real face of this government, the face of oppression and using force."

On Monday, the union decided to extend the strike for another week. Zakarneh said the striking teachers will continue to receive their salaries from the West Bank government.

Relations between the two governments have grown increasingly acrimonious. Egypt is trying to broker a new round of power-sharing talks that is to begin later this month in Cairo.