Some 50 Palestinians—many decked out in Santa Claus costumes—hurled stones at Israeli security forces in the West Bank village of Bil'in Dec. 26 in a protest against the enclosure of village lands by the "Apartheid Wall." Soldiers sought to disperse the crowd with tear gas and rubber-coated bullets. In Na'alin, 200 Palestinians and Israeli supporters also held protests that day, some hurling stones and petrol bombs at Israeli soldiers. Army Radio reported that dozens of young Likud supporters led by MK Gilad Erdan also arrived in Na'alin to express their support for the soldiers. (Haartez, Dec. 26)

A report released by the B'Tselem human rights group Dec. 22 states that the West Bank settlement of Ofra, northeast of Jerusalem, is in fact an "illegal" outpost even under Israeli law. Ofra, part of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, is a 168-acre community located between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Nablus, with some 3,000 residents. B'Tselem found that Ofra must be evicted under the stipulations of the Sasson Report, complied by Attorney Talia Sasson at then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's request.

Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 15 that the route of the West Bank "separation barrier" cannot be based on plans to expand Jewish settlements. The court rejected a plan that would route the wall through Bil'in village, on the grounds that this route was not motivated by "security concerns." The ruling will return 250 acres to the village, noting that the Israeli state has still failed to implement a 2007 high court ruling that would also have returned some of the village's lands. Already two-thirds complete, Israel's 723-kilometer wall currently snakes through the occupied West Bank, fragmenting Palestinian territory. Bil'in has become a symbol of popular opposition to the wall for its persistent weekly protests against the enclosure of its lands. (Ma'an News Agency, Dec. 16)

Right-wing settlers furious at the Israeli army's eviction of the so-called House of Contention in Hebron invaded the northern West Bank city of Nablus Nov. 4, and set fire to fields and vehicles. Dozens were injured in Hebron as IDF troops evicted 13 families that were illegally occupying a house that belongs to a Palestinian family, enforcing an order from Israel's supreme court. The settlers also set fire to Palestinian homes in Hebron, and several were arrested by Israeli soldiers, who used tear gas to quell the riot. (Ma'an News Agency, Dec. 4)

For the first time since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war (at least), no Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are making the sacred annual pilgrimage to Mecca this year. Saudi Arabia, seeking to bolster the (Fatah) administration on the West Bank, asked it to compose a list of Palestinian pilgrims—4,000 from the West Bank and 2,200 from Gaza. Egypt opened its border with Gaza to allow the pilgrims out, and the West Bank residents left two weeks ago. But the Hamas administration in Gaza insisted on submitting its own list. When the Saudis said they would not grant visas to those on the Hamas list, Hamas set up checkpoints along the Egyptian border and barred passage to those on the other list.

On Nov. 23, Israel's Supreme Court issued a decision to allow the state until May 2009 to implement its ruling of February 2006 concerning the "National Priority Areas" (NPAs). In its 2006 decision, the court ruled that the government's division of the country into NPAs that are awarded special educational benefits discriminated against Arab citizens and must be annulled. The court originally gave the state one year to implement its ruling, until February 2007.

Israeli police evicted a disabled Palestinian man and his wife from their East Jerusalem home of more than 50 years in a late-night raid early Nov. 9. The eviction followed a July Israeli supreme court order that found the home, provided to the couple in 1956 by the Jordanian government and a UN refugee program, was built on land they did not own. A Jewish land association said it has Ottoman-era documents proving the land originally was owned by Jews who fled in 1948 when Jordanian troops took East Jerusalem.

President-elect Barack Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel apologized Nov. 14 for disparaging remarks made by his father about Arabs. Benjamin Emanuel, speaking about his son to an Israeli newspaper last week, said, "Obviously, he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House." Rahm Emanuel called the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to apologize, saying "These are not the values upon which I was raised or those of my family." (Fox News, Nov. 14)