Hope

Fighters cross the divide for peace in Middle East

Bassam Aramin vividly describes the shock of his first meeting with the fresh faced, pony-tailed Noam Hayut. Three years ago, at the height of the intifada, Noam had been the commander at the biggest checkpoint in the West Bank between Jerusalem and Ramallah - for Palestinians like Bassam the most hated symbol of their lack of freedom of movement.

"I stared at his face and he said 'why are you looking at me?' I said: 'I want to be convinced you are an Israeli Jew who commanded the Qalandiya checkpoint. I don't see this in you. You are a human being.'" Both men recall it as a deeply uncomfortable first encounter, despite Noam's harsh self-criticism over what he did as an Israeli soldier and officer. "He said: 'I consider all of what I've done is terrorism,'" Bassam recalled. "I told him: 'It's true. All you did is terrorism.'"

"The first time I was speaking it was not easy for Bassam to hear what I did in Beit Jala [a notorious flash point of the conflict] or in the neighbourhoods around Qalandiya," remembers Noam. "And it wasn't easy for me to hear he attacked a soldier. I thought: that could have been me."

This is one of those rare postive stories to come out of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Hope seems in short supply at the moment in Palestine

Israeli missile kills two in Gaza

Palestinians decry US, EU aid halt

The Palestinian prime minister and president have lashed out at the United States and European Union for halting direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority.

On Friday, Ismail Haniya, the prime minister and a Hamas leader, denounced the decisions as "hasty and unjust".

"The world should respect the choice of the Palestinian people," he added.

President Mahmoud Abbas said that "the Palestinian people should not be punished for their democratic choice".

By cutting the aid, the US and EU were "punishing all the people, workers and families", he said.