Abed Al Hashlamoun / EPA
A Greek Orthodox sweeps in the Church of the Nativity in the biblical West Bank city of Bethlehem on June 28, 2012. UNESCO voted to grant world heritage status to the Church of the Nativity. The declaration by UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization covers the West Bank church, venerated by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus, and the surrounding route taken by religious pilgrims.
Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP - Getty Images
A young Palestinian protester runs away from Israeli soldiers during a demonstration against the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel in the village of Kafr Qaddum, near the West Bank city of Ramallah on June 22, 2012.
Mohammed Ballas / AP
Members of the Palestinian security forces arrange Palestinian flags on coffins containing the remains of bodies of 91 militants transferred from Israel to the Palestinian Authority, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on May 31. Israel transferred the bodies in an effort to induce Palestinian President Mehmoud Abbas to renew negotiations. Palestinian officials said all were killed either while carrying out suicide bombings or other attacks on Israeli targets.
Abbas Momani / AFP - Getty Images
Palestinian women mourn during the funeral of 91 Palestinians whose remains were returned by Israel at the Palestinian headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on May 31. Israel handed over the remains of scores of Palestinian militants killed in attacks against Israel, a Palestinian official said.
Reuters reports -- The remains of 91 Palestinian militants whose attacks killed hundreds of Israelis over the past 35 years were returned to the West Bank and Gaza on Thursday in a gesture Israel said it hoped could help revive peace efforts. Palestinian leaders, however, signaled no shift in their refusal to negotiate as long as Israel continues building settlements on land where they hope to establish a state.
The boxed remains of 80 militants were transferred to coffins draped in the Palestinian flag for a solemn ceremony at the official compound in Ramallah of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Read the full story: Palestinians honor dead returned by Israel.
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa / Reuters
Palestinians carry a flag-covered coffin containing the remains of a Palestinian militant outside a hospital morgue in Gaza City on May 31. The remains of 91 Palestinian militants whose attacks killed hundreds of Israelis were returned to the West Bank and Gaza on Thursday in a gesture Israel said it hoped could help revive peace efforts.
Ilia Yefimovich / Getty Images
A Palestinian flag is draped over one of the coffins as Israel returns the corpses of 91 militants, in the Police camp on May 31, in Ramallah, West Bank. The militants, killed during anti-Israeli attacks, were returned despite objections raised by Almagor, a group representing Israeli victims of Palestinian attack. According to officials, some of the militants were killed over 40 years ago. Twelve of the bodies were returned to Gaza.
Menahem Kahana / AFP - Getty Images
Palestinian women scuffle with Israeli policemen as they try to stop them from arresting a relative in the east Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Issawiya on May 15, 2012, as Palestinians took to the streets to mark Nakba day.
Palestinians held a series of events and protests Tuesday to mark the Nakba ("catastrophe") of Israel's founding in a 1948 war, when hundreds of thousands of their brethren fled or were forced to leave their homes.
On Monday, a Palestinian official said a deal had been reached with Israel to end a weeks-long high-profile hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Read an analysis of the background to the hunger strikes by NBC News correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin.
Ammar Awad / Reuters
A Palestinian suspected of throwing stones is detained by undercover Israeli police officers in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Issawiya May 15, 2012.
Mohamad Torokman / Reuters
A boy holds up a door key as Palestinians take part in a rally marking Nakba in the West Bank city of Ramallah on May 15, 2012.
Abir Sultan / EPA
A Palestinian youth shoots fireworks at Israeli policemen in the east Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Issawiya on May 15, 2012.
Ahmad Gharabli / AFP - Getty Images
Israeli riot policemen arrest a Palestinian boy in the east Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Issawiya on May 15, 2012.
Mohammed Abed / AFP - Getty Images
The head of Gaza's Hamas government, Ismail Haniya (blue polo shirt), takes part in a marathon in Gaza City on May 15, 2012 to mark Nakba day.
Ammar Awad / Reuters
A man and child, members of the Samaritan sect, rest during a traditional pilgrimage marking the holiday of Passover atop Mount Gerizim near the West Bank city of Nablus, early on the morning of May 11, 2012. The Samaritans, who trace their roots to the biblical Kingdom of Israel in what is now the northern occupied West Bank, observe religious practices similar to those of Judaism.
Israelis and Palestinians woke Friday to a rare sight in the usually temperate Holy Land: a thin blanket of snow.
Snow fell in Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the Galilee, and the West Bank cities of Hebron and Bethlehem as residents and tourists alike ventured out to enjoy the unusual winter weather.
Local media reported that this was the first time in four years that snow had fallen in Jerusalem.
Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images
A Palestinian man and his son stand next to a snowman outside their house on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah as wintry weather swept through the region on March 2, 2012.
Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images
Israelis play in the snow in Jerusalem on March 2, 2012.
Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images
Palestinian youths play with snowballs in Jerusalem on March 2, 2012.
Abir Sultan / EPA
Two Haredi (Ultra Orthodox ) Jews make their way through a snowstorm in the Mea Shaarim neighborhood of Jerusalem on March 2, 2012.
Bernat Armangue / AP
Ultra-orthodox Jewish youths dress a snowman in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood on March 2, 2012.
Marco Longari / AFP - Getty Images
Snow falls on an olive tree in the West Bank city of Ramallah on March 2, 2012.
Darren Whiteside / Reuters
Melted ice trickles off the hat of a man as he visits the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City on March 2, 2012.
Abir Sultan / EPA
A Palestinian worker labors at the construction site at the Jewish West Bank settlement of Shilo on Wednesday. Israel gave preliminary approval on February 22 to a plan to build 600 new homes in a settlement deep inside the West Bank, a move that drew a rebuke from the United Nations and Palestinians and threatened to raise new tensions with the U.S. as the prime minister prepares to head to the White House.
AP reports about Israel's preliminary approval to build new homes in the West Bank: the timing of the move may further hinder already troubled Mideast peace efforts. It casts a shadow over a trip by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington in March, in which he is expected to discuss Iran's nuclear program and other regional issues.
The U.N.'s Mideast envoy, Robert Serry, called the Israeli announcement "deplorable" and said it "moves us further away from the goal of a two-state solution."
Speaking to reporters, State Department spokesman Mark Toner declined to comment about the announcement, but said the U.S. policy on settlement activity is clear. "We don't believe it's in any way constructive to getting both sides back to the negotiating table. And we want to see clearly a comprehensive settlement that delineates borders and resolves many of these issues."
Nasser Shiyoukhi / AP
Palestinian boys hurl stones at a car driven by an Israeli woman on the main road between Jerusalem and Hebron after a demonstration in solidarity with Islamic Jihad member Khader Adnan, who has been on hunger strike for two months, in the West Bank village of Beit Omar, Feb. 21.
Uriel Sinai / Getty Images
Palestinian men keep warm around a fire as they wait to be collected by their Israeli employers after crossing from the West Bank town of Qalqilya to work in the Jewish state in the early morning of Feb. 19, near the Israeli army's checkpoint at Kibbutz Eyal in central Israel. With high unemployment the Palestinian economy is in a state of near-collapse resulting in increased pressure on the growing number of Palestinian workers seeking employment, illegally and legally in Israel.
Ahmad Gharabli / AFP - Getty Images
Israeli firefighters gather at the site of a crash between a truck and a school bus transporting Palestinian children between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah on Feb. 16, 2012. At least eight Palestinian children from east Jerusalem were killed when their school bus was hit by a truck on a road in the West Bank, Israeli police said.
The Associated Press reports from JERUSALEM — Israeli police say at least eight Palestinian schoolchildren died in a bus crash in the West Bank.
The children were killed when a truck careened into their schoolbus on Thursday morning. The bus overturned and caught fire.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says the children were taken to Israeli and Palestinian hospitals and that at least eight died. Palestinian police say the death toll was 10.
There were no signs of foul play. The truck driver was said to be an Arab Israeli citizen who may have lost control in heavy rains and slick roads.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning and ordered flags flown at half staff. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also expressed sorrow. Click here for the latest on this story.
Hazem Bader's picture in the Jan. 26, 2012 episode of The Week in Pictures.
Msnbc.com ran this picture by AFP photographer Hazem Bader in our Jan. 26 The Week in Pictures. Other publications including The International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian also ran the picture. Controversy has swirled since publication. Both the photographer and the picture agency have been accused of biased reporting.
The Israeli embassy in Washington wrote to U.S. newspapers shortly after publication. The letter said that the vehicle in the picture was stationary and that medics from the Israeli Defense Forces and Red Crescent determined the construction worker had not been injured. In its letter, the embassy asked newspapers to issue a correction that the construction worker’s injury was not confirmed independently and possibly was staged. The embassy asked newspapers “to consider ceasing to publish the photographs of Hazem Bader.”
The Agence France-Presse (AFP) picture agency responded to the criticism in a press release dated Feb. 3, “After several days of thorough research by our Jerusalem Bureau, AFP wishes to confirm the veracity of both the picture and the accompanying caption.”
AL-DIRAT : An injured Palestinian construction worker screams in pain after an Israeli army driver drove a trailer hooked to a tractor over his legs, as he tried to block him when Israeli forces stopped workers on January 25, 2012 from building a house in al-Dirat village, south of Yatta in the southern Bank town Hebron region. The Israeli forces were seizing the equipment and trailer from the construction workers as the site falls in the occupied zone C in which Israel prevents Palestinians from building on their land. AFP PHOTO / HAZEM BADER
The picture agency’s Jerusalem bureau photo editor interviewed other media representatives who were present at the scene. They say, “Their trust in the events described by Hazem Bader is unequivocal.”
AFP also interviewed the injured construction worker, Mahmud Abu Qbeita, on Feb. 1, as well as the doctors who treated him at the Yatta hospital. A medical certificate is included in AFP’s press release. It states, “In the medical examination we found that he has pain in his right knee, pain in his pelvis, and pain in the neck, and has difficulty in walking. We conducted x-rays on him and found fractures. He has been advised to consult the orthopedic department."
However, Tamar Sternthal argues the other side in his Feb. 6 opinion piece in ynetnews.com. Sternthal says AFP claims to have viewed video footage of the construction worker being carried away after the incident, but does not claim to have seen footage of him actually being run over.
AFP unwittingly drew attention to a key point: of the several photographers on site who were snapping away, not one has released a single image of Abu Qbeita as he was being run over.
Sternthal also attacks the medical certificate that AFP offered and challenges the existence of the construction worker’s x-rays when he writes, “He (Mahmud Abu Qbeita) does not offer to show the x-rays, nor has AFP released them.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) also criticizes AFP’s response, saying there are discrepancies between Bader’s original caption and what AFP says in their Feb. 3 press release.
AFP appears to be done with the argument. The last line of their press release says, “We will not make any further comment.”
Related:
Menahem Kahana / AFP - Getty Images
An Israeli settler holds her baby near the unauthorized outpost of Mitzpe Avichai near the Kiryat Arba settlement in the West Bank city of Hebron after the outpost was destroyed by the Israeli army on Jan. 12, 2012. Israeli troops demolished an unauthorized settler outpost made up of 10 wooden huts in the southern West Bank, police and the military said.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the Mitzpe Avichai outpost was illegally established in 2007 and had expanded in the past year to house nine families. It is the third such outpost to be demolished in the last week.
See more images from the West Bank on PhotoBlog.
Menahem Kahana / AFP - Getty Images
Israeli border policemen evacuate settlers after their wooden houses at the unauthorised outpost of Mitzpe Avichai were destroyed by the Israeli army on Jan. 12, 2012.
E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS