Demonstrators in the West Bank on June 7 joined mass protests to mark the Global March to Jerusalem, and dozens were lightly injured as Israeli forces tried to disperse them. In al-Maasara, near Bethlehem, participants in a weekly march suffered tear-gas inhalation. Demonstrators raised Palestinian flags, pictures of prisoners and Palestinians killed by Israel to mark the anniversary of the Six-Day War. Israeli forces fired stun grenades and tear-gas canisters at the demonstrators.  Activists praised the unity of Palestinian people and promised more activities to protest Israeli actions. 

Israel on June 6 released former Palestinian Minister of Prisoner Affairs Wasfi Qabaha, ending his two-year detention without charge or trial. Previous to the two years in administrative detention, Qabaha had been detained by Israel nine times and spent 13 years in jail. Qabaha was released at Jubara checkpoint, northwest of Nablus, where he immediately collapsed, sustaining severe bruising. He was taken to hospital in Tulkarem and underwent minor surgery. At the checkpoint, Qabaha told Ma'an News Agency that the Israeli Prison Service mistreated Palestinian and Arab detainees and had worsened oppressive measures since Jordanian prisoners staged a hunger strike. 

Syrian elite troops are backing up an offensive apparently led by Hezbollah against rebels in the strategic town of Qusayr, as the UN Human Rights Council debates a resolution condemning the assault. Russia meanwhile protests a European Union decision to lift its arms embargo on the Syrian rebels, and says it will respond by supplying Damascus with S-300 air-defense missiles. This, in turn, is decried as a "threat" by Israel, which warns it could launch air-strikes to destroy any deployed missiles. "The situation is beginning to show worrying signs of destabilizing the region as a whole," said UN rights chief Navi Pillay. 

Israeli missiles struck a research center near Damascus, setting off explosions and causing casualties, Syria's state news agency reported  May 5. If confirmed, it would be the second Israeli strike on targets in Syria in three days. Two previous Israeli air-strikes, one in January and one on May 3, targeted weapons reportedly bound for Hezbollah. (AP, May 5) On May 4, a former senior official in the Bush administration said the use of chemical weapons in Syria might have been an Israeli-instrumented "false flag operation." Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, told Current TV: "We don’t know what the chain of custody is. This could’ve been an Israeli false flag operation, it could’ve been an opposition in Syria... or it could've been an actual use by Bashar Assad. But we certainly don’t know with the evidence we’ve been given. And what I'm hearing from the intelligence community is that that evidence is really flakey." (JP, May 4)

A Catholic monastery and convent in the secluded  Cremisan Valley outside Bethlehem lost a seven-year legal battle against the construction of Israel's "separation barrier" across its land on April 24. The wall will surround the convent and primary school on three sides, confiscating most of its land.  A small gate will be built to allow nuns and monks to access the Salesian Monastery and Convent in order to "guarantee their right of freedom of religion." The gate will also allow farmers and landowners to access their lands on the other side of the wall, although they will need permits to reach them.

Long term hunger striker Samer Issawi ended his protest action on April 23 after signing an agreement with Israel which guarantees his release, his lawyer Jawad Bolous said. The deal will see Issawi released to his hometown of Jerusalem after serving eight months in jail, after 266 days of refusing food in protest against his rearrest by Israeli forces. The agreement was signed at Kaplan Medical Center in Israel where Issawi is currently being held, and both his uncle and brother were present at the signing, Bolous said.

The Assad regime's use of chemical weapons is announced as a "red line"—the favored metaphor of Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, now alarmingly accepted by the US media, at least.  Israel yesterday said the line has been crossed. Brigadier-General Itai Brun, head of IDF military intelligence, told an Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv: "There's a huge arsenal of chemical weapons in Syria. Our assessment is that the [Assad] regime has used and is using chemical weapons." Brun cited photographs of victims that showed them foaming at the mouth and with contracted pupils. "To the best of our understanding, there was use of lethal chemical weapons. Which chemical weapons? Probably sarin." And John Kerry, speaking at a NATO meeting in Brussels, called on the alliance to make preparations to respond in the event of chemical weapons threatening a member (meaning Turkey). (The Guardian, April 23)