Under criticism from UNESCO, Israel reportedly removed Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs from its "National Heritage Sites" list—but provocation by far-right settlers seeking to secure the sites as exclusively Jewish sparked violence.
With Khader Adnan still recovering after his 66-day hunger strike against his "administrative detention" by Israel, a Palestinian woman, Hana Yahya al-Shalabi, began her own hunger strike against her detention without charge or trial.
In the worst clash in the recent protests at Jerusalem's Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, Israeli police used tear gas and stun grenade at the entrance of al-Aqsa Mosque. Protests began after right-wing politicians called for closing the site to Muslims.
Palestinian detainee Khader Adnan has been on hunger strike since Dec. 17, and Physicians for Human Rights now says that his life is at risk. His protest against administrative detention has sparked solidarity demonstrations across the West Bank.
Egyptian authorities cancelled the annual Jewish pilgrimage to the grave of a 19th-century Moroccan rabbi Yaakov Abu Hasira in the Nile Delta village of Daymouta, after Islamists threatened to protest and attack the pilgrims.
Three months after Tunisia's first post-revolutionary elections brought the moderate-Islamist Ennahda party to power, the country's Jewish leaders say they have no intention of making aliyah—despite the urgings of Israel.
An Israeli government plan to create a greenbelt around Jerusalem is fueling opposition among Palestinians and their supporters, who say the chain of parks is a land grab that consolidates Israel's grip on occupied East Jerusalem.
Israel's rabbinate has taken the decision to phase out the traditional white-turbaned clergy of the Ethiopian Jews, known as the kessoch—whose "unusual religious practices are at odds with the rabbinate's Orthodox Judaism."
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