Passover celebrates the Israelites’ delivery out of captivity in Egypt. In Israel, Monday evening’s ceremonies were muted by uncertainty surrounding hundreds of Hamas-imprisoned hostages. For many family members, the holiday became a renewed cry for their release—and for a response from a government they increasingly see as indifferent.

With the world focused on Iran and Gaza, Israeli settlers are stepping up attacks against Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank. Feeling abandoned, many residents believe they should take matters into their own hands.

Not by bread alone: While reports indicate that flour supplies entering Gaza may be ticking up, aid experts say much more has to be done to alleviate burgeoning famine there.

Marwan Barghouti’s popularity is unsurpassed. His message of democracy, unity, and resistance to occupation increasingly resonates today with Palestinians who are under attack, distrust their leadership, and would vote for him if given the chance

For the first time since the war began in Gaza, resentment against Hamas is boiling to the surface in public expressions of anger and in social media, as residents increasingly are losing their reluctance to speak out.

The humanitarian needs of Palestinians in Gaza, displaced by war and, in midwinter, facing dwindling access to food, shelter, and medicine, are staggering. A multifaceted crisis for the aid distribution network in Gaza could hardly be more poorly timed.

For the Druze, an Arab religious minority, serving the state in which they live is both a civic duty and a tenet of their faith. Yet after the horrors of Oct. 7 and their losses since, Israeli Druze see the Israel-Hamas war as becoming increasingly personal.

Monitor reporters Taylor Luck and Fatima AbdulKarim witnessed a shooting attack by West Bank settlers on Palestinian shepherds as an Israeli army jeep stood by. Officials and diplomats say the attacks further a campaign they’ve warned of for years: to push Palestinians off their lands.

War’s destructiveness extends beyond a tally of lives and structures lost; it extends to the richness of cultural life as well. Palestinians in Gaza say the loss of artists and academics who touched and inspired them will be felt for generations

In Beit Jann, an Israeli Druze village with views of Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, the outlook is one of determined optimism. Even as the entire region is gripped by uncertainty and rising violence, villagers speak of peaceful coexistence.

Communications are a basic societal need, especially in times of stress. In wartime Gaza, where phone and internet service has been besieged, leaving Gazans cut off from each other, affecting everything from ambulances to aid distribution.

Backed by the US and Arab states, a massive postwar reconstruction and governance plan is taking shape for the besieged Gaza Strip. Combatants and local politics stand in the way.

With food and aid slowing to a trickle in besieged Gaza, adults are going 36 hours without food just to feed their children a piece of bread. As the UN warns of a looming famine, here is how Gazans are coping with “a war that starves you.”

The spirit of regional cooperation and optimism that radiated from the Arab Gulf only two months ago has been replaced by frustration with the United States. Gulf leaders and officials express exasperation with Washington’s inability or unwillingness to end a war in Gaza they fear will destabilize the entire region.

As Israel’s military campaign pushes further south in Gaza, and Israel and Hamas engage in urban warfare, Palestinian residents say they are left with nowhere to go.

Reeling from the dashed hopes for an extended cease-fire, Gaza Palestinians say they are now under siege like never before – isolated from family members they can no longer contact and trapped in a rotation of neighborhoods as the Israeli army cuts off one residential block from another and issues confusing orders on safe zones. Gazans say nowhere is safe.

Even as policymakers explored new pathways for peace and climate action, the shadow of Gaza loomed large over COP28 in Dubai.

Unplanned guests – Palestinian residents of Gaza who were working or getting medical care in Israel when the war erupted – showed up at this three-star Ramallah hotel in the middle of an October night with little more than a change of clothes. Now stranded, they and thousands others do not know if their checkout date will be next week, next month, or next year.

Under cover of the war in Gaza, armed Israeli settler groups in the West Bank are intimidating Palestinians on land essential to a Palestinian state. The Palestinian farmers and villagers are struggling to hold on to their lands and livelihoods.

Differences and frustrations bubbled to the surface when White House envoys and Western and Arab diplomats took to the stage and discussed Gaza at a security conference in Manama, Bahrain

What will Gaza look like after the war? Conversations have begun, and the Palestinian Authority that governs the West Bank is trying to carve out a significant role. The move is certainly in its self-interest but could also open a door to the long-abandoned peace process.