AP - Israel gave preliminary approval on Wednesday to a plan to build 600 new homes in a settlement deep inside the West Bank, a move that drew rebukes from the United Nations and Palestinians and threatened to raise tensions with the U.S. as the prime minister prepares to head to the White House.
AP - The leadership of the Islamic militant Hamas on Wednesday settled internal disagreements and approved a unity deal with its political rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a senior official said.
AP - Syria's embattled leader, Bashar Assad, appears to be losing one of his last bastions of reliable support: the Druse Arab community in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Christian Science Monitor - Russia’s decision not to attend a “friends of Syria” meeting in Tunisia later this week deepens the international community’s divide over Syria and raises prospects of a cold-war-style proxy war in the Middle East.
AP - A Palestinian member of a violent Islamic militant group that advocates killing Israeli civilians agreed to end his 66-day hunger strike to protest his imprisonment without charge after reaching a deal with Israel that will free him in April, the Israeli Justice Ministry said Tuesday.
Reuters - A Palestinian held without trial ended a 66-day hunger strike Tuesday after Israeli authorities promised to release him in April in a deal that avoided judicial review of its detention policy.
Time.com - "The West Bank's Bobby Sands" is how some in the British media have begun referring to Khader Adnan, as the 33-year-old Palestinian detainee marks Monday as his 65th day of refusing food from his Israeli gaolers
