A step towards reversing the separation between the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been made after PNI Secretary General, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, successfully helped mediate between the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and the Gaza government to re-open the PCBS' offices in the Strip.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, visited occupied Bethlehem today, the biblical birthplace of Jesus now encircled by the Israeli Apartheid wall.

Financial pledges of support to the Palestinian government in the West Bank at the Paris Donors Conference have been undercut by the extrajudicial killing of twelve Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank by Israel overnight. The twelve were killed in a series of air attacks and an undercover operation, bringing the number of extrajudicial killing operations launched since 28 September 2000 to at least 256, which have killed at least 612 Palestinians.

The Israeli government released 429 prisoners today, claiming this to be a goodwill gesture towards the West Bank government. Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, retorted that Ehud Olmert is simply trying to mislead global public opinion about the true intent of Israel.

"A man with the rare capacity to promote dialogue and understanding and to act as a bridge between peoples" was how Italian Consul General Nicola Manduzio described Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP yesterday, as he awarded him the Ufficiale dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarieta' Italiana on behalf of the President of the Italian Republic at a ceremony held in Ramallah.

In a review of events in Palestine in 2007 at a press conference in Ramallah yesterday, PNI Secretary General Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP stressed that Israel's ongoing efforts to dictate a fait accompli on the ground through settlement construction and expansion, ongoing killings, injuries and arrests of Palestinians, the siege on Gaza, and its rejection of core issues, continue to underline its lack of commitment to real peace.

As one who for decades has supported a two-state solution and the nonviolent struggle for Palestinian rights, I view the recent conference in Annapolis with a great deal of skepticism - and a glimmer of hope.

The demolition of eight Palestinian homes in Jerusalem since the Annapolis meeting on 27 November 2007, together with the 4 December announcement by the Israeli Housing Ministry that it plans to build an additional 307 housing units in the illegal Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa, are yet further proof of Israel's refusal to negotiate on the core issue of Jerusalem, and its desire to annex as much of the occupied city as possible before it accepts any final peace deal, said PNI Secretary General Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi today.