Middle East Monitor - The Latest from the Middle East

Israel's civil administration in the occupied West Bank has ordered the closure of a Palestinian primary school in the village of Khirbit Jinba, in the hills south of Hebron. A report in Haaretz newspaper said that this is to create a training area for the Israel Defence Forces.

According to the media report, the Israelis have also confiscated the bus which is used to transport staff to the school. A demolition order has been issued to knock the school down, even though local people have no access to any other school in the vicinity; the nearest is in Yatta, 20 kilometres away.

The League of Arab States has renewed its commitment to the Arab peace initiative as the only way to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East. The region, said the League, is still suffering from chaos, turmoil and the spectre of multiple wars.

An Australian court has rejected a request made by the police force in Sydney to postpone a march commemorating the Nakba. The police asked for it to be held at the weekend instead of midweek to avoid disrupting the city's traffic.

Judge Christine Adamson rejected the request after a hearing on Monday evening, explaining that freedom of expression takes precedence over any potential traffic congestion. In any case, she added, the importance of the actual date of the Nakba made it essential for the commemoration to take place on 15th May, not on any other day.

EXCLUSIVE PICTURES

Palestinians and their pro-justice supporters around the world have remembered the 64th anniversary of the Nakba, the Catastrophe caused by the creation of the state of Israel in historic Palestine. In 1948, almost a million Palestinians were driven out of their homes by Zionist Jewish militias and were forced to find relief and shelter in neighbouring Arab countries and the wider world, as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

EXCLUSIVE PICTURES

As news broke of the Egyptian-brokered deal which has brought an end to the Palestinian prisoners' mass hunger strike, Palestinians and their supporters worldwide heaved a collective sigh of relief. The effect was no different in Gaza, where supporters had for weeks stationed themselves in a tent in protest at the treatment meted out to prisoners in Israeli jails.