The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, speaking from Cairo, said that it is unlikely that there will be a peace deal finalized between Israel and the Palestinians before the end of this year.

He made the statement during a press conference Saturday, following talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Abbas stated that while he had hoped that the Annapolis Summit in late 2007 marked some change in Israeli policy, he was disappointed with the lack of progress. He stated, "despite the significant efforts each side has made, there is no certainty we can strike a deal by the end of the year because very little time is left."

He added that any peace agreement between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli occupying army would “have to include all the issues surrounding a permanent agreement”. He mentioned the Palestinian core demands, specifically, that “Jerusalem and the right of return are inalienable Palestinian rights”. The three Palestinian core demands, which have remained the same since the Palestine Liberation Organization was formed in the late 60s, are the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were scattered across the region and globe when Israel was created in 1948, an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, and the release of all Palestinian political prisoners being held in Israeli prison camps.

After meeting with the Israeli President Shimon Peres in Italy on Friday, Mahmoud Abbas stated that the Palestinian people and the Israeli occupying forces are closer to a peace agreement than ever before. But after meeting with Mubarak on Saturday, he tempered his optimism somewhat, saying that peace was not likely in 2008.

The Israeli national broadcasting Authority has refused to allow radio stations in Israel to air ads sponsored by Israeli peace groups that criticize Israel's 15-month long siege on the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip.

The siege, which is in direct violation of the responsibilities of an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention (signed by Israel in 1953), affects 1.4 million civilians in Gaza – forcing them to live in dire poverty without access to proper medical care, and with chronic shortages of food and fuel. Nearly 150 patients have died due to the Israeli siege, when Israeli authorities refused to allow them to exit the Gaza Strip for needed medical treatment.

New radio ads produced by the Israeli peace group, Gisha, point out one often-forgotten piece of the siege: the hundreds of students enrolled in universities abroad, who will experience serious setbacks in their education due to being imprisoned in the Gaza Strip and unable to return to school.

Palestinian analysts often point out that these young people represent the best and brightest of the Gazan population, and by preventing them from going to university, Israel is fomenting the very extremism that the siege is supposedly trying to punish. These analysts argue that the students who study abroad tend to have a moderating effect on the population, and by imprisoning them, Israel is creating worse problems for themselves than before.

In the banned ad, author Yonatan Getten states, "The right to study crosses borders and conflict. We all have the right to study”, and talks about meeting his first girlfriend in Cambridge when he was given the opportunity to study abroad.

According to Sari Bashi, the director of Gisha, around 1000 Palestinian students leave Gaza each year to study abroad. This year and last year, all but a few dozen, have been prevented from leaving. The reason, according to the Israeli government, is that only students who study at prestigious Western universities should be allowed to leave. Most of the 1000, however, are enrolled at universities in the Middle East and Asia. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said, “"exposing Palestinians to a pluralistic and democratic academic environment can only have a positive impact upon the students.”

But Israel has no set standards as to what constitutes a 'pluralistic and democratic academic environment', and subjectively judges all schools based on their location. This 'picking and choosing' of who is allowed out and who must stay in is completely arbitrary, and in direct violation of the Palestinian people's right to education under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A report issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Saturday indicates that torturous conditions are the norm during transport.

The report found that “prisoners are waiting in trucks for over five hours without food, water or ventilation in the summer, and without heat during the winter. The ill suffer even more as they are chained in two's."

Today’s report focused on the transport between prisons and to and from the court or the hospital.

The Ministry also stated that “Israeli prison authorities deliberately exercise various forms of maltreatment and torture against Palestinian prisoners in order to pressure them and weaken their morale while being transported."

Even more, "the prison administration will not inform the imprisoned of the transfer to a new location until the night before so there is not adequate time for him to prepare himself. He is subjected to a humiliating and provocative search process that leaves him a naked prisoner."

Israeli forces are holding over 11,000 Palestinians in 20 prisons and detention centers.

The case of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is no longer being handled by the Egyptian mediators, said Khaled Abdul Majeed, secretary General of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front.

He added that Norway and Switzerland are now following up talks over Shalit’s case instead of Egypt, which failed to reach an agreement between Shalit’s captives and Israel.

Abdul Majeed, who is based in Damascus, said that the reason behind the deterioration between Egypt and Hamas movement is that Egypt functions according to “American instructions,” which according to him is a big concern for Hamas.

He said “There is a feeling among Hamas leaders that Egypt is pressuring Hamas only, and it is believed that the internal dialogue being held in Egypt between Hamas and Fatah will not be fruitful because of the bias of the mediators in favor of the Palestinian Authority (Fatah).”

Shalit has been captured in Gaza Strip since June 2006 after Israel assassinated three of Hamas leaders in the Strip. He was captured in a military operation on a military base in Karm Abu Salem in the southern Gaza Strip.

His captives have presented more evidence that Shalit is still alive and they demand that Israeli release Palestinian prisoners for them to release Shalit. His father No’am Shalit accused the State of Israel of jeopardizing his son’s life by not being willing to reach an agreement with the resistance groups who hold Shalit.

Eight tankers are parked on the rough ground at the filling point. The drivers look anxiously at a metal box attached to a large water-pipe that carries a trickle of water into the nearest tanker. Dr Hassan of the Palestinian Hydrology Group explains: "They are looking at the pressure gauge. Pressure is very low and the drivers are worried. No water deliveries, no pay." This is the Dhahiriya water filling point, a few miles south of Hebron in the West Bank. Many nearby Palestinian communities - the "unconnected villages" - rely on this water.

"When the pressure is good," says Dr Hassan, "a tanker can be filled in 20 to 30 minutes. But now it takes about three hours. At this rate it will take two months to supply all the people on this list. But new names are being added every day." There is no immediate solution.

Israel controls 80 per cent of West Bank groundwater, an arrangement that would have been addressed under the Oslo peace process. Because the process unravelled, little has changed: Palestinians bear the brunt of the area's water shortages.

Under Oslo, the West Bank was divided into three areas, with 60 per cent of it, known as Area C, under full Israeli military control. About 70,000 Palestinians, mainly farmers and shepherds, live in this area, eking out a precarious living in circumstances that deteriorate year on year.

Perhaps the worst affected part of the West Bank is the area around Hebron, the West Bank's largest city. The disastrous 2007-2008 wet season produced only 13 per cent of the expected annual average rainfall. By March this year it was clear that for the communities living in Area C, to the south of the city, survival would be a major achievement.

In Area C there are many villages and hamlets that, unlike the neighbouring Israeli settlements, are not connected to the water network. The people here rely on springs, wells and collecting surface-water in cisterns, but it is not enough. Connection to the mains would make a huge difference to life in these rural communities. But there is a snag. They need permission to build any kind of structure and even if their documentation is in order, the final say lies with the Israel Defence Forces civil administration. A recent UN report records that between 2000 and 2007, 94 per cent of building permit applications submitted by Palestinians living in Area C were denied.

One of the scores of unconnected villages in the south Hebron hills is at-Tuwani. A village leader, Hafez, is clearly worried. "The settlements are connected to the network but when we want to build new cisterns the Israelis won't give us permission. If we build them the army will knock them down."

The villagers suspect that this is part of Israel's plan of "silent transfer" - if life here becomes too difficult for the Palestinians, they will leave. The many settlements around Hebron have no trouble gaining access to the water network. Mekorot, the Israeli national water company, will connect them for the same price as other domestic customers in Israel - four shekels per cubic metre (pcm). The settlement of Otniel, visible from the Dhahiriya filling point, enjoys this luxury.

In the unconnected villages, tankered water costs 15-17 shekels pcm. Remote communities have to pay up to 50 shekels pcm. For people whose main incomes derive from subsistence farming, the costs are impossible to meet. Hafez warns: "People here cannot pay these prices and without emergency aid they will have to abandon their villages, leaving the land for the settlers. This is what the Israelis want."

Ron Taylor was a volunteer at IMEMC in 2007, he can be reached at roma114@hotmail.com