The announcement of an Egypt-brokered reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas raised hopes that a decade of bitter feuding between the rival Palestinian factions may finally come to an end. The early conclusion of the talks in Cairo hinted at how much pressure both sides were under to make progress.
Renewed moves towards reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah are being hailed by PA officials as a victory for Abbas after he imposed harsh sanctions on Gaza over the summer to punish Hamas. But experts argue that the drive for unity puts Hamas - not Abbas - in the driving seat, by helping it find a way out of regional isolation.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Donald Trump in the White House this week to discuss reviving the long-cold corpse of the peace process. Back home, things are heating up. There is anger in the West Bank, both on the streets and within the ranks of Mr Abbas’s Fatah movement. The trigger is a two-week-old hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu shrugged off the Paris peace summit as the 'last gasp of the past before the future sets in'. Israel has lost no time in preparing for the future, one in which peace talks and a two-state solution look obsolete. Ministers are rallying behind legislation to annex Maale Adumim, a large settlement east of Jerusalem in a strategically vital location in the West Bank.
A Greek Melkite archbishop, described as an "icon" of the Palestinian liberation struggle, has died in Rome at the age of 94. Hilarion Capucci, who was appointed the Patriarchal Vicar of Jerusalem in 1965, was jailed nine years later by Israel for arms smuggling. Hanan Ashrawi said Capucci "embodied the activist church - spiritual leaders who were prepared to translate their principles into action and struggle against injustice."
Fatah launched its seventh congress this week, amid heated speculation about the future of its leader, Mahmoud Abbas. Among those watching closely as events unfold is the Israeli leadership. The congress – the first since 2009 – will determine the make up of Fatah’s main representative bodies and may offer clues as to whom is best placed to succeed the 81-year-old Abbas.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has revived long-standing suspicions that his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, was murdered. Abbas announced last week that he knew the killer's identity, adding that the world would be "amazed when you know who did it". Abbas also suggested that a Palestinian commission of inquiry into Arafat's death may be close to releasing its findings, after years of delays.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has described his security forces’ cooperation with the Israeli military as “sacred”. But an armed attack on an Israeli checkpoint this week by a Palestinian security official, which left three Israeli soldiers injured, suggests that Abbas’ view may not be widely shared among Palestinians.
In many Palestinians' minds, non-violence has become tainted by association with Mahmoud Abbas’ years of ineffectiveness and his security coordination with Israel. But some Palestinian intellectuals are advocating non-violent resistance on pragmatic grounds, emphasising the futility of violence faced with Israel’s military superiority.
Israel has little but stopgap measures to defend against Palestinian protests. Its intelligence agencies cannot predict the lone wolf, its guns cannot deter the knife, its military might cannot subdue the craving for justice and dignity. The current unrest may recede, but more waves of protest of ever greater intensity are surely not far behind.
