Category Archives: On the ground reports

The death of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, a prisoner who succumbed to cancer, has sparked demonstrations and clashes in occupied Palestine. Palestinians launched a two-day general strike, closing shops in East Jerusalem with light clashes breaking out by the Qalandia checkpoint. But while Hamdiyeh’s death has sparked new unrest within Israeli jails and on the streets, it remains unlikely the protests will grow into anything larger. Above, shops closed in East Jerusalem as part of a general strike in response to Hamdiyeh’s death.

Land Day is an annual commemoration of six killed during a 1976 march against land expropriations in the Galilee. Last year Palestinians protested in thousands to mark Land Day. This year’s protests, at Qalandia, Damascus Gate and the southwest Jerusalem village of Beit Safafa, failed to capture the same momentum– and may signal a change in Palestinian attitudes about demonstrations.

Mohammed Asfour’s burial earlier this month in the village of Aboud near Ramallah was not a national event. The 23 year-old Bethlehem University student and sports lover may not be memorialized outside his small village, yet Asfour’s March 8th funeral was a turning point. Protests in the wake of his death are indicative of a wave of confrontations with the Israeli military across the West Bank. The prisoners’ hunger strike has pushed into small villages and re-invigorated popular dissent. As President Barack Obama’s makes his much lauded arrival in the region this week, a nascent uprising is forming.