Originally published in USA Today RAMALLAH, West Bank — During the day, shoppers jostle for space in candy and clothing stores and sip coffee in the sunshine here in the West Bank's bustling economic capital. The war raging a short drive away in the Gaza Strip seems far away. But at night, this city frequently explodes in anger at the conflict in Gaza that has killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and wounded thousands more. The protests are not confined to Ramallah but erupt

Originally published on The Real News Network For the second night in a row, the al-Aqsa Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah Party, opened fire on Israeli forces at the Qalandia checkpoint. A frequent site of fiery clashes, the checkpoint separates Ramallah and the West bank from Jerusalem. Fatah is the dominant political party in the Palestinian Authority (PA), and has garnered significant resentment in recent years for its open security collaboration with the Israeli army

The sun is setting and the city prepares for the nightly invasion of the Israeli army. Lately, Israeli soldiers refrain from entering the city’s refugee camps, instead sending the Palestinian Security Forces. The collaboration between the two is an open secret, and for the teenagers on the ground it doesn’t make much different who wears the uniform, “they all get showered with stones,” K. laughs as he tells me about a recent shoot out between a Palestinian militant faction a