Key issues

● Israeli forces injure around 60 Palestinians in protests and clashes across the West Bank. Three Israeli forces individuals also injured.

● Israeli forces demolish 16 residential and livelihood structures, displacing 14 people and affecting over 80 others.

● One Palestinian man sentenced to death by the local authorities in Gaza, allegedly for collaborating with what the court described as a “hostile element”.

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in 1948, which left most Palestinians as refugees in and outside of Palestine. Since Israel occupied the rest of Palestine in 1967, its occupying forces have been violating the rights of the Palestinian civilian population under its control in breach of the rules of international law. Today presents an opportunity to reiterate the urgent call for ending Israel's occupation through reinstating justice, respecting human rights, and securing democracy for the Palestinian people.

IOM provides assistance to internally displaced persons, stranded migrants and third-country refugees inside Syria as well as Syrian refugees, Iraqi and Lebanese returnees and vulnerable host communities in the neighbouring countries of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.

IOM Regional Response to the Syria Crisis Situation Report - 16 May 2013

1.4 million refugees have now fled violence in Syria and are in desperate need of shelter, food and water. Over half of them are children.

The crisis is set to escalate, but our resources are stretched to breaking point. Any donation, no matter how small, will help us support more families caught up in this crisis.

The situation

Summary

Israeli violations of international law and international humanitarian law in the oPt continued during the reporting period 09 – 15 May 2013.

Shooting:

With much of Gaza's farmland swallowed by Israel's buffer zone, experts say urban aquaponic farms can curb food insecurity in the cramped territory.

By Rebecca Collard

This article originally appeared in the GlobalPost.

GAZA CITY — On the roof of a six-story apartment block in Gaza City, 51-year-old Abu Ahmed plucks heads of lettuce and vines of tomatoes from his garden.

Today is Nakba Day, the day on which Palestinians mourn the loss of their homeland in 1948. 65 years ago, in May of 1948, Ghatheyya Mifleh al-Khawalda was a carefree 15-year-old girl who lived with her mother and sister in the village of al-Qastina in Mandatory Palestine, when they were forced, along with the rest of their village, to flee in the face of imminent threat from Jewish militias. For some time, the people of al-Qastina had received word of terrible attacks against other villages nearby, in which many had died.

05/15/2013 03:09 GMT

by Shatha Yaish

IQRIT, Israel, May 15, 2013 (AFP) - Sixty-five years after their ancestors were driven out during the Nakba, the "catastrophe" that befell Palestinians, Arab Israeli youths are returning to the village of Iqrit in the Upper Galilee.

A small Catholic church is all that remains of the village their families fled in 1948 during the conflict that accompanied Israel's declaration of independence.

GENEVA (13 May 2013) – United Nations Special Rapporteur Richard Falk today called for an immediate halt to construction of a settlement highway in Beit Safafa (East Jerusalem), also known as the ‘Begin Highway.’ Mr. Falk urged the Israeli Government, in particular the Ministry of Transport, to order a stop to the construction, which if completed, would cut through the community of Beit Safafa and ruin the livelihoods of the 9,300 Palestinian residents.