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.”

UNESCO members (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) overwhelmingly approved Palestinian membership in a 107-14 vote on Monday, although there were 52 abstentions.

UNESCO, which is responsible for protecting historic heritage sites and promoting cultural understanding, holds little power on the international stage. But its decision to grant Palestinians membership in the organization is a symbolic victory for the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who is campaigning for international support for statehood after years of stalled negotiations with Israel.

What are the ramifications for the parties involved?

For the Palestinian Authority

Practically speaking, UNESCO membership for Palestine doesn’t bring it any closer to actual statehood. But with the Palestinians’ bid for full UN membership stalled because of an almost-certain US veto on the United Nations Security Council, the Palestinian Authority has opted to move forward by pushing for membership at individual UN agencies, such as UNESCO, the Associated Press reports.

Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib called the vote “a vote of confidence from the international community,” implying it was a victory in the battle of perception. "We look at this vote as especially important because part of our battle with the Israeli occupation is about the occupation[’s] attempts to erase the Palestinian history or Judaizing it. The UNESCO vote will help us to maintain the Palestinian traditional heritage, " he said, according to AP.

With UNESCO membership, it will likely be easier to gain heritage status for historical sites in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The UNESCO membership could further complicate Quartet efforts to resume peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

For Israel

Haaretz reports that Israel is “reconsidering” its future cooperation with UNESCO and “rejects” its decision to grant full membership to the Palestinians. The Israeli foreign ministry released a statement saying that the move “further removes the possibility for a peace agreement” between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel is still smarting over the Palestinian bid for UN membership, officially launched in September, and has cited that as a reason to resist making further concessions to the Palestinian Authority or offering it confidence-building measures.

Israel was one of the 14 members to vote against Palestinian membership.

For the United States

The US is obligated by law to stop funding any agency that grants membership to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and the State Department announced this afternoon that it is ceasing its funding. The Obama administration will not make a $60 million payment planned for November, the Washington Post reports. The US provides about $80 million a year to UNESCO.

The law can be used to bar Washington from providing funding for any UN body that accepts members who don’t meet “internationally recognized attributes of statehood,” according to AP. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called UNESCO's vote "inexplicable” because it will not fast-track Palestinian statehood.

The US boycotted UNESCO from 1984 to 2003 amid a "growing disparity between US foreign policy and UNESCO goals,” according to Agence France-Presse. However, in the news agency’s view, President Barack Obama “now considers UNESCO a strategic interest and Washington sees it as a useful multilateral way to spread certain Western values.”

The US was one of the 14 members to vote against Palestinian membership.

For UNESCO

UNESCO faces losing about a fifth of its funding – $70 million annually – as a result of its approval of Palestinian membership. The US is its largest single funder, providing 22 percent of its annual budget, according to The New York Times. The loss would result in immediate cuts to programs and personnel.

UNESCO is responsible for promoting international collaboration on education, science, and culture. It is perhaps best known for its recognition and occasional funding of World Heritage Sites, which are sites of cultural or physical significance.

Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas fighters more than five years ago, sparking outrage across Israel. Now he's set to be freed in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Who is Gilad Shalit?

At the time of his capture, Gilad Shalit was a 19-year-old corporal in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), working as a tank gunner along the Israel-Gaza border. During his imprisonment, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant.

Sgt. Shalit holds dual citizenship with Israel and France. He was born and raised in northern Israel and joined the IDF in 2005 after completing high school – the norm in Israel, where military service is compulsory for men and women.

How was he captured?

Shalit was kidnapped on June 25, 2006, in a cross-border raid by Palestinian militants based in Gaza. They dug under the border to reach an Israeli army post near the Kerem Shalom checkpoint (see map), where Shalit was patrolling the Israel-Gaza border. Two Israeli soldiers were killed and four others were wounded in the raid, while Shalit was brought into the Gaza Strip and held captive there by Hamas.

Days later, Israel staged an invasion into Gaza, trying unsuccessfully to free Shalit and stop rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. The fighting was soon overshadowed by the July 2006 kidnapping by Hezbollah of two Israeli soldiers working near the Lebanese border, which led to a month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah that summer.

How many previous attempts at deals have failed?

Negotiations have been start-and-stop since Shalit’s capture.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that Israel and Hamas seemed on the verge of reaching agreement in 2009, but the deal fell through. Previous attempts stalled over disagreement about which Palestinian prisoners would be released by Israel in exchange for Shalit’s release.

What do we know about his captivity?

Very little information has been released about Shalit in the five years he has been held captive by Hamas, although Hamas periodically released videos or letters from him.

The first letter, which seemed to be dictated by his kidnappers, was delivered in September 2006. In it, he warned that his mental and physical health was deteriorating, the BBC reports. An audio recording, again warning of his health, was released in June 2007. There are reports of other letters in February and June 2008.

In October 2009, Hamas released a video of Shalit holding a Gazan newspaper dated Sept. 14, 2009. The video, which was given to Israel in exchange for the release of 20 Palestinian female prisoners, showed him to be in “reasonable health,” BBC reports.

Hamas did not permit the International Committee of the Red Cross or any other humanitarian organization to visit Shalit during his captivity.

Why does he matter so much?

In a highly militarized country like Israel, where nearly every native-born Israeli does at minimum his or her mandatory military service and many continue to serve as reservists for decades after, the kidnapping of a soldier hits close to home for nearly everyone. Five years after Shalit’s capture, banners proclaiming “Gilad still lives” could be found hanging across the country.

Seeing Shalit released, alive and well, would reassure Israelis about the fate of their own loved ones who serve.

"I have a son who's in the midst of his national service. He's 20, and that of course augments everything that I'm feeling," Israeli Shira Ezra told the BBC in June 2011. "Just being an Israeli, I'm thinking how absurd it is that someone is alive there and we're not getting him out."

However, for some – particularly those who have had a family member targeted in a terrorist attack – the release of so many Palestinian prisoners isn’t worth the release of one soldier, as the Monitor reported in 2009, as a deal on Shalit seemed imminent.

Yossi Zur, whose son died when a Haifa bus he was riding was blown up in 2003, explained why.

"I believe that releasing so many terrorists is going to do a lot of harm, most probably by creating a new wave of terrorism," he adds, "and we know many of these terrorists go back to the same kind of activity after they are released."

What are the Palestinians seeking?

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), considered the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, has had observer status at the United Nations since 1974. It has been allowed to participate in debates both in the General Assembly (GA) and the Security Council, but does not have voting rights.

Now Palestinians are seeking full membership in the United Nations as a sovereign nation. If they succeed, it will give their quest for statehood crucial international backing, but it will not officially create a Palestinian state.

When will it happen?

The Palestinian leadership is expected to submit its application for membership to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Friday, when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to address the General Assembly (GA). Mr. Ban will then pass on the application to the UN Security Council, which must review all membership bids.

This may be all that happens on the statehood bid, procedurally, at the GA meeting. It could take months for any further developments.

What happens next?

The Security Council will examine the application on the basis of four criteria: defined territory, a defined population, a government capable of controlling the territory, and the ability to enter into diplomatic relations.

Nine of the 15 Security Council members, including all five of the permanent members, must give a positive recommendation on the application for it to pass on the General Assembly for a vote.

The deadline for a response from the Security Council is unclear – the guidelines are that it must issue a recommendation 35 days before a regular GA session or 14 days before a special session.

This is where the application for full membership is likely to run into trouble. The US, one of the permanent members, has made it clear that it will not give its stamp of approval to the Palestinians’ bid. There is no way to go around the Security Council and straight to the GA.

On the off chance that the US approves the Palestinian bid, then the application goes to the General Assembly for a two-thirds majority vote. Palestinians are widely seen as having enough support in the GA for such a vote to pass.

What are the Palestinians' current alternatives to the bid?

There’s been some talk of using the so-called Uniting for Peace Resolution to circumvent US opposition to the membership bid.

The resolution, which can be used to overcome a persistent veto from a permanent member of the Security Council, was originally adopted in 1950 to overcome Russia’s veto on international intervention in North and South Korea. But it is unlikely to be accepted as applicable in this case, says Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s negotiating team from 2000-05. Technically, the US would not be vetoing anything because it would merely be issuing a negative recommendation.

The PA can also ask the General Assembly to upgrade its status from permanent observer entity to permanent observer state, a nonvoting status only Vatican City currently holds.

Such an upgrade has been touted as giving the Palestinians an important symbolic victory and moving them closer to eventual full membership. Some have expressed hope that the new status would make it possible for them to join the International Criminal Court and exert greater pressure on Israel via the court. But UN experts have said in recent days that ICC membership would not immediately follow an upgrade in UN status.

But Ms. Buttu says there is little tangible difference between the two. Becoming a permanent observer state does not bestow the PA with voting capabilities, which is the main drawback to its current status as well.

“I can’t say they went in with this goal in mind, but that might be the outcome,” she says.

Weekend clashes along the Israeli-Syrian border between Israeli forces and pro-Palestinian protesters put the spotlight on the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory that Israel has controversially occupied for more than four decades. Here are five keys to understanding the dispute.

Location and status

The Golan Heights is in the northeast corner of Israel, spanning east from the Sea of Galilee and north to Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon (see map of the region here).

The Golan was part of Syria until 1967, when Israel captured the territory in the Six-Day War (the same war in which Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza). Israel has occupied the territory ever since. Syria insists that any peace agreement with Israel include the return of the Golan Heights.

Separating the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria is a United Nations demilitarized zone with more than 1,000 UN peacekeepers. The UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) was put in place in 1974 (following the 1973 war between Israel and Arab neighbors Egypt and Syria) to prevent a resumption of hostilities along the border.

Strategic importance

Elevation makes the Golan Heights strategically valuable. The region is mainly comprised of a plateau that sits at more than 1,000 feet above sea level, but rises to the peak of Mt. Hermon at more than 9,000 feet. Having control of the Golan gives Israel a vantage point from which to monitor any Syrian military movements towards Israel.

Before Israel captured the Golan Heights, Syrian forces stationed on the plateau were able to observe and fire on Israeli towns in the lowlands below with limited risk of retaliation.

Natural resources

In this arid region, water takes on critical importance. One-third of Israel’s freshwater supply originates in the Golan Heights, from which it travels to the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River.

Ceding control of the Heights to Syria would give Syria access to the Sea of Galilee’s eastern shore and one of Israel’s two key sources of water.

The Golan is also fertile and among Israel’s most important sources of domestic beef, fruit, and wine.

Demographics

Some 150,000 Syrians fled the Golan Heights into other parts of Syria in 1967 after Israel captured the territory. More than 20,000 Arabs remain today, many descendants of those who remained behind in 1967. Most of them swear loyalty to Syria and refused Israel’s offer of citizenship following its annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981.

Israeli settlement of the Golan began in earnest after Israel annexed the land (but not the West Bank or Gaza Strip). By 2009, there were 32 Israeli settlements in the Golan and about 17,000 Israelis.

Peace agreements

There have been numerous attempts to bring peace to the Israeli-Syrian border, but so far the most progress remains an armistice signed in 1974, which gave Syria back a sliver of land that was turned into the UNDOF zone and has kept the border mostly quiet since then.

US-brokered negotiations collapsed in 2000 over the Sea of Galilee. Syria wanted Israel to withdraw all the way to its pre-1967 borders, giving Syria an access point to the water, while Israel wanted to maintain a buffer between the lakeshore and Syrian territory in order to protects its water resources. Talks mediated by Turkey in 2008 collapsed as a result of the Israeli incursion into Gaza.

The current Israeli government is opposed to a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, although earlier Israeli leaders floated the idea. Syria maintains full withdrawal as a precondition for peace talks to resume.