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.”

srael labelled the Hamas-controlled Gaza a "hostile entity".

The Islamist movement refuses to recognise Israel arguing that it is an illegitimate state.

Israel intensified the siege last week, saying the move was in response to heavy rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.

Nowadays, Gaza is a territory where the economy has collapsed, power shortages are a daily occurrence, and Israeli air strikes are common.

But how is Hamas faring under this pressure?

One of its leaders, Mahmoud Zahhar, insists that Hamas - which won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 - does not need to change its course.

"We are giving all efforts to run a real administration," he told the BBC news website. "We are ready to continue for years."

Options

But there is a major divide within the movement and certainly not all Hamas members are as optimistic.

The hardliners - including Mr Zahhar - believe that the current crisis will do no long-term damage to the movement.

But Hamas moderates are not so sure. They believe that there must be greater debate on how Hamas is to proceed in the future.

Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official widely regarded as a moderate here, says that the movement has not done enough to balance its politics with "the resistance".

"I consider them like the wings of the bird," he said. "You cannot fly without one wing."

He hinted that Hamas should focus more on governance than on resistance.

Even though Gaza is a Hamas stronghold, many Palestinians in the territory are opposed to the movement.

Some belong to Fatah, Hamas's main Palestinian political rival - a secular movement headed by the current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Elusive unity

Khimar Abu Sada, a professor of political science at Gaza's al-Azhar University, says there is growing popular pressure against Hamas - and the siege - and there are calls for change.

But he says that the recent Israeli attacks - more than 35 Palestinians, mainly militants but including at least 10 civilians have been killed in the last week - mean that people are less willing to criticise Hamas.

"Israel seems to want to shorten the days of Hamas in the Gaza Strip but this policy is backfiring," he said.

"The Palestinians cannot just stand and watch the killings of their brothers and fellow citizens."

Many Hamas moderates and other Palestinians are stressing the need for national unity.

They believe that a reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas - a government of national unity collapsed between the two parties earlier this year - would greatly improve the situation in Gaza and possibly lift the siege.

But as a precondition of negotiations, Fatah leaders are demanding that Hamas reverse its gains in Gaza that it made in June.

The bitterness runs deep, and at the heart of their disagreement is recognition of Israel - Fatah does and Hamas does not.

Exclusion

President Abbas is currently engaged in a new peace initiative with Israel. Hamas has been excluded from these talks.

But some senior Fatah officials warn that the situation in Gaza is embarrassing the Palestinian leader while, in turn, strengthening Hamas.

"Israel is strengthening the people that aren't convinced that negotiations can get us our rights," says Dr Faisal Abu Shahla, a senior Fatah official in Gaza.

For now, Hamas officials seem to be pinning there hopes that Arab countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia will work to get the siege lifted - but that is a long shot.

Some Hamas officials admit that they siege could go on "for many years".

But they insist that it will not break the movement.

Yellow cranes swivel in the winter sun on a hill in south-east Jerusalem; occasional bursts of drilling puncture the otherwise peaceful atmosphere.

In almost any other part of the world this scene would go largely unnoticed.

But for Israelis and Palestinians the issue of construction at Har Homa/Jabal Abu Ghneim has rapidly become a political battleground.

The Israeli government announced plans last month to build 300 new apartments at the Har Homa development in occupied East Jerusalem, drawing a furious diplomatic response from the Palestinians.

The row has dominated the first few weeks of the Annapolis process - a renewed US-sponsored attempt by the Israelis and Palestinians to end the conflict - and will be high on the agenda during US President George W Bush's visit to the region this week.

But why has the dispute become so heated?

Palestinian position

The main reason is that it goes to the heart of one of the key issues of this conflict - what territory will form the basis of any future Palestinian state.

Under almost every interpretation of international law, Har Homa - built in an area known in Arabic as Jabal Abu Ghneim just north of Bethlehem - is an illegal settlement, built on land Israel occupied during the 1967 Middle East War.

Critics accuse Israel of attempting to cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank by building settlements for Jews only along the city's flank.

Palestinians say that under the Annapolis process Israel must freeze all settlement building.

But the Israeli side views the issue differently.

Israeli position

The Israeli authorities - like many ordinary Israeli citizens - refer to Har Homa as a "neighbourhood" (not a settlement) of Jerusalem and therefore not subject to any freeze.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 as part of its "eternal indivisible" capital, though the move has not been recognised by almost the entire international community, including the US.

Israel intends any final agreement with Palestinians to leave the "neighbourhoods" of East Jerusalem in its hands, along with large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert referred to this as the "'67 plus" solution last week in an interview with the Israeli daily newspaper, the Jerusalem Post.

For the Palestinian team involved in the new process this position is unacceptable and they are calling for an immediate freeze to settlement construction.

Uncertain future

Some Palestinian political analysts are warning that the current Palestinian negotiating team is being "embarrassed" by the Har Homa issue.

"They have been making noises and protestations about this issue but it seems that they will continue negotiating," says political analyst George Giacaman.

"This will only weaken their position in the eyes of the Palestinian people."

Many residents in Har Homa seem unconcerned by the political storm centred on their homes.

Adi Schwertzberg, 27, said: "George Bush needs to know that a lot of people live here and it's our home. It's just like any other neighbourhood in Jerusalem."

But some Israeli estate agents are saying that people are becoming more reluctant to move to Har Homa.

Those trying to sell their homes were finding it more difficult because of the political controversy and uncertainty of Har Homa's future, said agent Aaron Bass.

President Bush will be expecting to hear a lot about Har Homa and Jabal Abu Ghneim during his first presidential visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, which starts on Wednesday.

He will be hoping to come up with a solution to the dispute, but it is unlikely to satisfy both sides.

The violence during a rally to mark the third anniversary of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's death illustrates the deadly tensions between the two main Palestinian political factions.

Six Palestinians were killed and dozens other injured as clashes broke out between Hamas and Fatah supporters at the Gaza memorial. Both sides laid the blame for the violence at each other's door.

Ever since the bloody Hamas takeover in June, the Islamic movement has pursued an aggressive law-and-order agenda, barring demonstrations, and sometimes brutally cracking down on its rival, Fatah.

But Hamas permitted Monday's commemoration of Yasser Arafat - also the former Fatah leader - hailing him as a national figure.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, waving yellow Fatah flags and carrying portraits of the late leader, marched into Gaza City, says the BBC's Gaza producer Hamada Abu Qammar.

But for Fatah leaders, and many of those in attendance, this was an excellent opportunity to protest against Hamas rule in Gaza. Last year's anniversary was a smaller affair.

Fatah inclusion

At speeches given during the rally, Zakaria al-Agha, the Fatah chief in Gaza, directly challenged the Islamist movement.

"We say to Hamas and these armed militias, stop your crimes," he said, reading a statement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"These crimes will not shake our determination."

Parts of the crowd chanted at Hamas security members "Shia, Shia" - seen as an insult and accusing them of being a proxy for Shia Iran and its ally Syria.

Many observers see the Gaza Strip as caught in the middle of a wider power struggle between the West and Iran for greater control in the Middle East.

Israel, the US, and Europe have embraced Mr Abbas and his Fatah party, which predominates in the West Bank.

Mr Abbas, along with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is due in Annapolis later this month for a Middle East conference.

In contrast Hamas, which won the parliamentary elections in 2006, has been internationally ostracised for its refusal to recognise Israel and renounce violence.

The Jewish state declared Gaza a "hostile entity" in September, in what Israeli officials said was a response to the almost daily rocket fire from the territory.

Weakening support

The sanctions that were lifted in the West Bank in June, when Mr Abbas formed an emergency government that excluded Hamas, have been tightened in Gaza.

Gaza's economy has largely collapsed, access to and from the territory is tightly controlled, and the majority of the population live below the poverty line, according to the UN.

Some political analysts say that the dire situation in Gaza is weakening support for Hamas.

"People were showing their anger against Hamas at this rally," says Bassam Nasser, director of the Palestinian Centre for Democracy and Conflict Resolution.

"They were also saying to the West that Gaza isn't just Hamas and the closures must be lifted."

But for now, that appeal seems to be falling on deaf ears.

Hamas has repeatedly called for reconciliation talks with Fatah. But Mr Abbas says that Hamas' takeover in Gaza must be reversed before that can happen.

Neither side is backing down and nor does there appear to be a leader capable of unifying the two factions.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in the Middle East working to try and bring the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams closer together ahead of a planned Middle East conference in the US next month.

Her current trip includes meetings with the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as trips to Egypt and a meeting in with Jordan's King Abdullah in London.

The agenda for discussion is likely to include borders, Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Palestinian refugees and the possible division of Jerusalem. But the one issue that appears to be on no-one's lips is that of Gaza, and the territories control by the militant Islamist group Hamas.

Despite holding over a third of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories, this crammed, impoverished strip of land is being swept under the diplomatic carpet ahead of the negotiations.

Last month, Israel designated Gaza a "hostile territory", threatening to reduce electricity supplies in the future and introduce yet more travel restrictions to and from the territory.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for rocket fire from Gaza.

Hamas refuses to recognise Israel but says that it is willing to offer a long-term truce to the Jewish state if it withdraws to 1967 borders.

Drastic reduction

According to humanitarian organisations, the situation in Gaza has worsened since the territory was labelled "hostile".

The movement of both people and goods has been drastically reduced, according to the United Nations.

The average of 106 truckloads daily into and out of the strip recorded between 10 June and 13 September has dropped to approximately 50 truckloads.

There has also been a significant reduction in the number of patients leaving the territory for medical treatment in Israel or the West Bank.

Fewer then five patients crossed each day compared to an average of 40 patients per day in July, according to the UN.

The economy is in ruins - as no goods can be exported - and banks are even reporting a shortage of hard currency.

Over 6,000 Palestinians - mainly students and workers - are waiting to leave the territory for overseas.

In the last month, only a few hundred have been permitted to travel by Israel.

'Exploiting suffering'

"What we are seeing is collective punishment," says Sari Bashi, director of Gisha, an Israeli human rights organisation based in Tel Aviv.

"The Israeli government is punishing 1.5 million Palestinians to get at Hamas."

The Israeli government, however, insists it is committed to the constant flow of humanitarian supplies into the territory and says that the suffering in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas.

"What is happening is that Hamas is opposed to practical solutions in getting the crossings opened and trying to gain leverage from the suffering of the Palestinian people," says Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry.

In light of the worsening conditions and upcoming conference, the deposed Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said his movement was willing to sit with its Palestinian political opponents Fatah to reach an agreement.

Fatah officials have refused to speak with Hamas since its takeover, by force, of Gaza in June.

But Mr Abbas snubbed the move. He has also been warned by both the Americans and Israelis not to deal with Hamas.

Conference doubts

So where does that leave Gaza - and Hamas - ahead of the conference?

Some members of Fatah worry that Hamas may try and scupper the conference before it goes ahead.

"They obviously can't make it a success," one senior Palestinian official joked. "But they can stop it happening," he added more seriously.

This is a reference to the possibility of a Hamas attack on Israeli soil in the coming days.

For now, Mr Abbas seems intent on trying to make a success of the upcoming conference.

But with Hamas and Gaza sidelined, some people are asking how comprehensive an agreement he can reach, if he can reach a deal at all.