The Biden administration has announced its plans to reinstate millions of dollars in aid to UNRWA, nearly three years after the Trump administration halted US funding for the agency. While Biden’s moves so far have been praised by the Palestinian leadership, the administration has made clear that it will not reverse some of the most controversial of Trump’s policies, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, or oppose normalization agreements between Israel and other Arab nations in the region.

After months of delays, the Palestinian Authority (PA) began its public coronavirus vaccination campaign this week, albeit to a very slow start.

The two elections in Israel and Palestine this spring are meaningless because they only reinforce an unequal structure in which Jewish nationalists contend on one side, Israel, and dictate the terms of the election to the subject population in occupied Palestine. And that’s the news. There’s no news under the burning sun of the Apartheid state.

Hamada Jaber writes that the Palestinian left needs to realize that the Hamas-Fatah rapprochement reflects a crisis and not the alleged unity needed to face Palestinians’ challenges. Given that, the upcoming legislative elections present an opportunity but the left needs to decide its goal — to become an effective force in the Palestinian political system, or merely to survive.

This week will mark the one year anniversary since the first cases of the coronavirus were reported in Palestine, and a state of emergency was declared in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, where Palestine’s COVID-19 outbreak began. One year later Palestine’s COVID-19 nightmare seems to only be getting worse. Cases are surging in the West Bank, causing health officials to declare a third wave of the virus, as many hospitals across the territory reach maximum capacity.

Several hundred Israelis could face arrest in official ICC probe of war crimes in Palestine, Defense minister Gantz says, as AIPAC urges Biden and Congress to condemn the move. The investigation will also target Israeli settlements, which European countries have said are illegal.

Across the international community there is a growing awareness that what has been happening on the ground in Israel-Palestine is morally unacceptable. Palestinian leadership must respond by presenting an alternative vision that rejects ethnic domination in favor of justice and equality for all who live between the river and the sea.

For decades the European Union has adopted a strategy of conflict management in Palestine, which has only served to prolong the status quo.

Palestinian health workers and medical professionals in Gaza are still struggling to get their hands on the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, after Israeli authorities reportedly blocked the entry of 2,000 doses into the besieged territory, according to Palestinian officials.

With the one year anniversary of the pandemic in Palestine fast approaching, and minuscule numbers of the population getting vaccinated, the COVID-19 situation in Palestine remains bleak, and will likely continue to grow in the coming months.