• 'Before the war life was sweet': Teen tells of life robbed by sniper's bullet

    Jordan refugee camps have become overwhelmed with Syrian refugees, as families seek medical attention and fear a cutback in food.  ITN's John Ray reports.

    By John Ray, Correspondent, NBC News

    ZAATARI REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan - A sniper’s bullet ripped through Hazem Mahmoud’s back seven months ago in Homs, Syria. The 15-year-old has felt nothing below his waist since then. His legs are pale, wasted and scarred by sores.  One bites deep into his thigh.

    “Before the war life was sweet,’’ Hazem said as he lay in a tin hut next to his sleeping sister. “Then the bombs and the shooting started. Now there are no hospitals in Syria, no one to help me.’’

    Mohammad Hannon / AP, file

    Refugees walk through water and mud in Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Mafraq, Jordan, on Jan. 8.

    A wheelchair and a single suitcase are the family’s sole possessions in the camp. The family discarded everything else along the way.

    Hazem is a boy the world has all but forgotten. At the Zaatari camp he is only one of thousands of desperate new arrivals on a recent morning. Only when we alert the United Nations staff is an ambulance summoned.

    In the overcrowded camp, medical services are overwhelmed, and aid running dangerously short. Humanitarian officials estimate that more than 1.2 million Syrians have fled the country to escape the war between President Bashar Assad’s forces and the largely Sunni rebels trying to unseat him.

    All the aid agencies complain they are approaching a funding crisis as big as the camp itself. Just one example: The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) provides the water for 120,000 refugees in Zaatari. Three hundred huge tankers lumber through the gates each day.

    “This is for drinking, for washing, for the toilets, and yet we are not in a position to renew the contracts to keep that water coming,’’ says Simon Ingram of UNICEF.

    Slideshow: Syria uprising

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    A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

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    Many aid workers report tensions are mounting among the refugees; scuffles are common. Violent protests are no longer rare.

    It doesn’t help that the huge sums promised by the international community have not been fulfilled. More than two-thirds of the funds needed to cover the basic needs of Syrian refugees have not materialized, United Nations officials say.

    The result on the ground? Even food hand-outs might have to be cut, says Laure Chadraoui of the World Food Program.

    "There is a lot of anger here. The assistance we provide helps hold that in. Take it away and the pressure cooker will explode,’’ she said.

    Invisible wounds

    Hazem and his family’s escape from Syria was both exhausting and miraculous.

    After that his family – mother, father, sister and sister – moved from safe house to safe house, dodging Syrian army checkpoint.

    Finally they were smuggled out of the city; first to Iraq and finally to Jordan.

    The final stretch of the journey was 250 miles, with Hazem at times hoisted on his father’s back.

    “What could I do, leave him to die?’’ said the father, who kept his face hidden around journalists.

    Human Rights Watch alleges that Syrian leader Bashar Assad's warplanes are carrying out indiscriminate airstrikes, with one medical facility being hit eight times. ITV's Richard Pallot reports.

    The family’s story is one of thousands. Many times the wounds aren’t visible.

    Ibrahim, a serious-faced boy of 13, says he dreams of joining his four brothers who fight with the rebel army.

    His nightmares are more real, about the day his home was bombed and he saw his friend shot dead.

    “He was just in front, it could easily have been me,’’ Ibrahim said.

    There is help. Ibrahim attends a school funded by UNICEF and a therapist helps him deal with his terrifying memories.

    Doctors will not be able to help Hazem walk again. The news is not good when he was finally taken to Jordanian medical center in the camp. His spinal cord is severed, a doctor says.

    “If we had a chance to treat when this first happened, maybe we could have helped. But it’s too late now,’’ said Dr. Ahmad A’Sanah.

    Hazem at least will live, when so many have died. But what kind of life among the refugees of Zaatari is hard to imagine.

    Related:

    Human Rights Watch: Syrian planes have killed 4,300 civilians since July

    Iraqi al Qaeda and Syria militants announce alliance

    Syrian rebels ask US to shoot down Assad's warplanes

     

  • On the Brink: Rough ride ahead for Obama as Palestinians, Israelis lukewarm over visit

    Nasser Shiyoukhi / AP

    Palestinian activists vandalize a poster of U.S. President Barack Obama in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Monday.

    By John Ray, Correspondent, NBC News

    TEL AVIV – Among Palestinians there is a coming president whose approach is creating quite a buzz of expectation.

    With apologies to the White House, it is not Barack Obama, who is set to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on a three-day Middle East visit that kicks off Wednesday.

    Indeed, his or her name is not even known. What is being awaited with mounting excitement is the winner of the latest reality TV show.

    Called simply "The President," it is a search among the youths of the West Bank and Gaza for a candidate with the skills and charisma to lead a people still in search of their own state.

    Some of the 1,000-plus hopefuls were gathered for a recording in Bethlehem over the weekend.

    It was quickly obvious that these were well-educated, serious-minded young men and women thinking serious thoughts about the Palestinian territory's many economic, social and political challenges.

    An irony was quickly apparent, too.

    President Obama will be visiting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu today on his first visit to the country as president, hoping to improve his image among Israelis, nearly 40 percent of whom said in a poll they feel Obama is hostile towards Israel. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

    For many, President Obama's rise from outsider to Oval Office is an inspiration for their own ambitions.

    But when it comes to helping realize their ambition for a Palestinian state, they have more or less given up on him.

    "Not all Palestinians welcome Obama," said Bashar Falashat, a 26-year-old business studies graduate from Hebron. "Half see his visit as just a tourism trip. We need him to see the reality, to see how we are suffering, but most Palestinians believe that he will not change anything."

    Several of the candidates think Obama's heart is with Palestine but his head is wedded to Israeli interests.

    Twenty-one-year-old Akhla Salman studies psychology and social work in Jerusalem.

    "I know America is the leading country for freedom and human rights, and I respect Obama because he is a good man," she said. "But between America and Israel there is a very strong relationship."

    Near-zero expectations
    Their near-zero expectations are being deliberately matched by the White House: Obama might be Nobel Peace Prize winner but he has no new plan to make peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

    Instead, the president will be in "listening mode" as he meets with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, and with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday.

    According to a recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute at Tel Aviv University, a majority of the Jewish public -- 51 percent -- believes Obama's attitude toward Israel is merely neutral, while 10.5 percent regard him as hostile.

    Meanwhile, Israel's Arab minority sees Obama as being very much pro-Israel.

    On the face of it, Obama's more passive stance ahead of the visit is good news for Aviela Dietch, a mother of three and someone with perhaps as little trust in Obama as in her Palestinian neighbors.

    Lior Mizrahi / Pool via Reuters, file

    An Israeli border police officer stands in front of a truck lifting a structure during its removal from the Migron outpost near the West Bank city of Ramallah on September 5, 2012.

    "I don't find that it is his place to tell us what to do here," she said.

    Born in Milwaukee, Dietch is one of the three hundred thousand Jews who have made homes on the West Bank – land seized by Israeli forces in the 1967 war and occupied ever since.

    These settlements, illegal under international law, are widely seen as the biggest obstacle to a peace deal. They are eating up territory earmarked for a Palestinian state.

    Dietch lived in a hilltop community called Migron, unusual because it was deemed illegal even under Israeli law. Last autumn, after years of court action, the government was forced to demolish it.

    "It was gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, to leave," she said as she walked past the few cabins and a small playground that still survive.

    Her home now is just a few hundred yards down the hill, in another Jewish settlement.

    Asked if she would be prepared to sacrifice that in the cause of peace, she replied without hesitation: "Of course not," she said. "And I don't think it would bring anybody peace. To ask us to sacrifice lives and homes we have been building up – there would be a civil war. A civil war."

    The settlers are by no means representative of wider Israeli opinion but they are a big power in the newly formed Israeli coalition government.

    That's one reason why Obama seems to have concluded there is no reason to waste energy and political capital on pushing along a peace process.

    The highest hope is to cajole confidence-building measures out of Netanyahu: the release of some Palestinian prisoners, or perhaps progress on a temporary settlement freeze.

    Indeed, in media briefings, Ben Rhodes, deputy National Security adviser, has placed the Israel-Palestinian conflict last on an agenda topped by Iran, Syria and wider regional turmoil.

    'Operation Unbreakable Alliance'
    These are issues which matter much more to mainstream Israel, and the best place to measure the mainstream is Tel Aviv – the beach-side city that is more Mediterranean than Middle Eastern.

    In an attempt to convey what he sees as a threat to Israel's existence, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a cartoon to illustrate how close he says Iran is to developing a nuclear weapon. In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly he asked the world to help stop them. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    "Personally, I was more moved by Bill Clinton, but Obama is totally reliable," said David Malka, a 52-year-old taxi-driver who works streets that were protected by the U.S.-funded Iron Dome missile shield during last year's conflict with Hamas.

    That's a practical demonstration of the value of U.S. defense aid worth $3 billion annually, not to mention American diplomatic clout, a sort of Iron Dome that deflects unfriendly fire at the United Nations.

    "He is a hundred percent committed to Israel's security and on Iran; if the moment comes, the U.S. has proved in the past that they help when we need help."

    As for Iran, Israel and the U.S. are clearly working on different timetables. Obama told Israeli TV last week he believes Tehran is a year away of nuclear weapons; Netanyahu's "red line" is this summer.

    The two leaders have notoriously cool relations -- and this visit is Obama's first to the Jewish state as president. Many here suspect Obama doesn't quite get what it is to be Israeli.

    But most are as confident as the Palestinians are pessimistic, that the fifth serving president to visit Israel will be true to the trip's branding as "Operation Unbreakable Alliance."

    Former NSC spokesperson Tommy Vietor and Aaron David Miller, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, discuss what's at stake with President Barack Obama's trip to Israel and debate whether he will be able to repair a fractious relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Related:

    More stories from NBC's 'On the Brink' series about Obama's Middle East visit

    A Palestinian Rosa Parks is needed: Israel's segregated buses spark outrage

    A $1 billion bet on peace: Qatar funds huge Palestinian settlement in West Bank

  • Smuggled sperm: Palestinians become dads from jail

    "She's happy, we're happy, everybody's happy," says Dr. Salim Abu Khaizaran, who treats the wives of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons.

     

    By John Ray, Correspondent, NBC News

    TEL AVIV, Israel -- It is surely among the strangest jail break stories ever conceived: a daring escapade in which a determined band of young women beat one of the toughest security regimes in the world.

    They are the wives of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails – without the right to conjugal visits – who nevertheless claim to have become pregnant by their husbands.

    This isn’t a case of the usual contraband sneaked into a jail to make life a little easier for inmates. It’s what is smuggled out that matters – the stuff of life itself.

    Plenty think the plot is far-fetched, but the women insist that armed with little more than cunning and a concealed container, they can ensure that no wall or coil of barbed wire is a barrier to parenthood.

    Faridah Ma’arouf laughed as she recalled hurrying out of the prison gates after visiting day was done, hiding a sample of her son’s sperm.

    “We had a taxi waiting to take us very fast,’’ she said. “I thought I had to get it to the doctor quickly.’’

    It seems to have been a successful operation. Three months later Ma’arouf sat in an IVF clinic where the progress of her daughter-in-law’s pregnancy was being monitored.

    It is what could be described as the brainchild of Dr. Salim Abu Khaizaran, head of the Razan Center for Infertility in the Palestinian city of Ramallah on the West Bank.

    “We are doing this to help these ladies because we feel as doctors that the wives of prisoners pay a very high price,” Abu Khaizaran said without revealing how many other such procedures he had conducted. “She has to wait for her husband, sometimes she can spend her lovely youth just waiting. And by the time her husband is out, many of them will not be able to have babies.”

    NBC News

    Faridah Ma'arouf says she smuggled a sample of her son's sperm out of Ofer Prison, above, so that her daughter-in-law could become pregnant.

    He added: “The wives lose out twice because the community then pressurizes the husband to marry another woman in order to fulfill his requirements to become a father, which ... I feel is very sad.”

    'What are you waiting for?'
    Many of the men are serving long sentences for terrorist offenses.

    Ammar Al-Zibben has been in prison for 16 years. He is serving 27 life sentences with an additional 25 years for plotting bomb attacks in Jerusalem that killed 21 people.

    He is also the recent father of a baby boy, named Mohannad, who is just seven months old.

    His wife, Dalal, 32, said the idea to go for IVF was originally her husband’s. The suggestion took her by surprise. She had expected opposition from family and friends in their conservative community.

    “I was very surprised when I found them encouraging me enthusiastically,” she said. “Everyone said I should do it and not deny myself and my husband our basic right, to have a family.

    “It reached a point where people would stop me in the street and ask me why I still hadn’t done it,” she added. “They would say to me, ‘What are you waiting for? Why are you wasting time?’”

    Her husband got to see his son for the first time six months ago.

    “The meeting was happy, sad, exciting. It was mixed with a lot of feelings and tears, I can’t describe to you how we both felt,’’ she said.

    “I had sacrificed everything when my husband was arrested,” she said. “Now I have been given this opportunity to make my dreams come true, to have the family I always wanted. We will be waiting for my husband to come out and join us.’’

    Near-miraculous conceptions
    As word spread, the number of prisoners’ wives waiting for the clinic to make their dreams come true has risen, hospital officials said.

    Alaa Badarneh / EPA, file

    Dalal Rabaya holds her son Mohannad at a hospital in the West Bank town of Nablus on Aug. 13.

    They all face the same, daunting obstacle. Typically a prisoner visitor will pass through an airport style scanner, a body search, and then be asked to leave all their possessions in a locker before they get to see their relative. And then they will be separated by glass and speak only by phone.

    According to the Israel Prison Service these are near-miraculous conceptions.

    “Due to technological and security restrictions that apply to prisoners in their relationship with family members, one can question the ability to smuggle as claimed,’’ Sivan Weizman, spokeswoman for the Prison Authority, said dryly.

    If Abu Khaizaran has any idea how samples get from prison cell to fertility clinic, he’s not telling. But the hospital insists on the written word of two close family members that the sperm is indeed that of the husband, he said.

    A black-and-white screen showed the outline of a baby in the womb. The loud and rapid beat of its heart reverberated in the fertility clinic’s small ultrasound room.

    “This is the head of the baby. And there’s its hand. He’s moving. It’s a boy. Fifteen weeks,” Abu Khaizaran told mother-to-be Lidya Al-Rimawi who had come in for her first scan. “Everything looks fine.’’

    Like all the women NBC interviewed, Al-Rimawi was coy when asked how she managed to evade Israeli prison guards and their searches.

    “We found much difficulty. But despite the security checks we got through, thanks to God,” she said.

    “Each case is different from another,’’ she said when pressed for more detail. “We smuggled it out in a bag, a small nylon bag. But it is difficult to explain how.”

    “If I told you the way we smuggled it, definitely the army will prevent it from happening and there are prisoners we don’t want to deprive of this same chance.’’

    She beamed as she looked at the image of the fast-growing baby inside her.

    “It is a very beautiful feeling,’’ she said. “It is a feeling that cannot be described. It is a miracle.’’

  • 'Force to be reckoned with': Israel's settlers dig in ahead of Obama visit

    Uriel Sinai / Getty Images, file

    A donkey roams at a Bedouin camp in the E1 area at the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumimin in the West Bank.

    By John Ray, Correspondent, NBC News

    TEL AVIV -- To the outsider, it looks like a poor piece of land to fight over: A sand and scrub hillside where, on a winter’s day, a chill wind whips over the boulders and blows through to the bone.

    On one side stand the minarets of Arab East Jerusalem, hemmed in by Israel’s security wall. Ahead, across a valley, lies the Jewish settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, a sprawling suburb of neat streets and anonymous housing blocks.

    Between the two feels like a bleak no-man’s land despite the presence of many Bedouin families.

    But that is deceptive: No patch of ground in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is more bitterly contested, or more important to White House hopes of restarting peace talks.

    At the heart of the dispute is Israel’s policy of building homes for Jewish settlers building communities built on land that the Palestinians feel is vital to a future state.

    “We are a force to be reckoned with,” said Yigal Dilmony, deputy general manager of the Yesha Council which represents 360,000 Jews who have settled in East Jerusalem and the West Bank (what they call Judea and Samaria). “The reality on this territory is that we can’t be ignored.”

    Late last year, the Israeli government announced it would speed up the start of construction of around 3,500 homes for settlers, connecting Ma’aleh Adumim to Jerusalem in an area known as E1 on the planners’ maps. 

    The settlers’ progress appeared unstoppable. But in 2013, the political landscape at home and abroad shifted.

    Shifting balance
    In December, in a rare public show of unity, every member of the United Nations Security Council except the United States condemned the expansion plans. In January, U.N, human rights investigators said Israel must stop settlement expansion and remove all Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank, saying that its practices could be subject to prosecution as possible war crimes.

    Ariel Schalit / AP, file

    A Palestinian man works at a new housing development in the Jewish West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim.

    President Barack Obama’s impending visit to Israel and the West Bank in March will only highlight the issue of the legality of settlements.

    And within Israel, January’s elections saw the balance of politics shift, if not decisively then certainly significantly, toward the center and away from reflexively supporting the settlements.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still struggling to knit these disparate strands into a governing alliance, but it is likely he will need to bring together his traditional right-wing supporters and the new more moderate voices.

    And few issues divide the Israeli establishment more than that of settlements.

    Here’s the outgoing Deputy Prime Minister, Dan Meridor, speaking on Israeli radio on Feb. 7:

    "There is a discrepancy between our claim that we are willing to accept a two-state solution and the fact that we don't limit the construction in the settlements to the settlement blocs.”

    Meridor is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party who failed to win re-election. But his voice has always tended toward the pragmatic.

    "I'm not saying we should stop construction in Jerusalem and in the settlement blocs, but we must not build beyond them, because by doing so we promote a very dangerous situation to Zionism, of one state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, which endangers us more than anything else," he said.

    Israeli media cite anonymous sources in Netanyahu’s office to say he’s not planning another freeze on settlements. On Monday he reiterated his support for two state-solution, albeit unenthusiastically.

    The battle over settlements centers around mutually exclusive visions of Israel’s future – a two-state solution versus an Israel decisively laying claim to land captured in the 1967 war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

    Clouds gathering
    For Palestinians, settlements and an eventual Palestinian state cannot be seen as separate issues. E1, the plot of land near East Jerusalem, is a vital corridor without which their territory would be severed, north from south. 

    Abir Sultan / EPA, file

    A Bedouin shepherd puts a newborn lamb in a bag on his donkey in the E1 area between Jerusalem and the West Bank.

    The construction of the thousands of homes would render impractical if not impossible the foundation of a meaningful state of their own.

    “My family has been here for 80 years,” said an Arab farmer tending his sheep and chickens on the disputed parcel of land known as E1.

    “This is our land but they’ve told us we’ll have to go,” said the farmer, who preferred his name not be used. “I don’t know what will happen to us.”

    So upon this seemingly barren corridor rests America’s chances of reviving a peace process that has been comatose for two years.

    Leaders of the settler movement see clouds gathering as Obama’s visit draws closer. But they remain defiant.

    "We understand that Obama as a second term president is much more dangerous to the settlements than the first term Obama and we need to keep our eyes wide open,’’ Dilmony said.

    "When he comes here he should meet us, the settlers, and see the situation for himself,” Dilmony said.

    On only point is Dilmony likely to be in agreement with the US administration.

    “Peace can only come from the people who live here,’’ he said.

    Related:

    Israel faces European backlash over decision to expand settlements

    US slams Israel's decision to expand settlements

    UN panel's report: Israel must withdraw all settlers from West Bank

     

  • Charismatic ex-commando pressures Netanyahu from the right as Israel prepares to vote

    Millionaire Naftali Bennett, who is bitterly opposed to a Palestinian state, is set to propel his party into a key position during upcoming elections. NBC's John Ray reports.

    By John Ray, Correspondent, NBC News

    TEL AVIV, Israel — Something very curious is happening at the top of Israeli politics.

    Benyamin Netanyahu — who has flown high as a hawk — is in danger of looking a little dovish.

    It’s not that the prime minister, who seeks and will almost certainly win re-election on Tuesday, has transformed himself into a peacenik. On the contrary; his campaign ads feature an intimidating cast of Israel’s nasty neighbors Hamas, Hezbollah and doesn't forget Iran. The message — that only strong-man Netanyahu can be trusted to defend the nation.

    The problem is that Netanyahu is being outflanked on the even harder right, which means that after the elections, he will feel pressure to become more hardline on issues such as Palestinian statehood. 

    It is probably even more galling for him that the rising star and rival is a former aide. 

    '100 years of bloodshed'
    Like most political pretenders here, Naftali Bennett boasts a military background, in his case as an army commando. He’s also a successful businessman who sold his company for a multi-million dollar fortune. What distinguishes him is a rare energy and a charisma often lacking in his counterparts. That, and a willingness to speak bluntly.

    "Injecting an artificial Arab state within the land of Israel would bring 100 years of bloodshed and war that would never end. It’s not good for the Arabs. It’s not good for the Israelis," he said.

    Dan Balilty / Pool via Getty Images

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Ariel University Center in the West Bank on Jan. 8. The institution's status was recently formally upgraded, making it the first university in the West Bank Jewish settlements.

    It is a message that has thrilled Israel’s settler community — the hundreds of thousands of  Jews who live on land occupied by Israel since 1967, illegally according to international law.  Peace talks with the Palestinians — around 2.5 million of whom live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — ground to a halt in 2010 after Netanyahu decided not to extend a moratorium on the building of settlements.

    Related: Avast! Israel's Pirate Party angles for 2 percent of electoral booty

    Netanyahu maintains that he is still committed to the creation of a Palestinian state as part of peace deal, but only as long as it is not a threat to Israel's security.

    For their part, Bennett and his Jewish Home party have no plans to turn the land over. Rather, the party proposes to annex nearly two-thirds of it, inviting any Palestinians who live there to take Israeli citizenship — or to leave. His popularity was clear during a recent rally in the southern city of Be'er Sheva as supporters, many too young to actually vote, mobbed him.

    More Israel coverage from NBC News

    Bennett is especially popular among the Jewish population in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, where Israeli soldiers patrol streets closed to Palestinians to protect a few hundred settlers.

    "He’s a good guy, a very good guy," two young Jewish men said as they flashed a thumbs-up. 

    Bennett is strong and will look after Jewish communities, many fellow settlers believe.

    President Obama's second term will be just hours old when he'll need to turn his attention to elections in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has campaigned largely on one issue: security. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.

    He won’t win the election, of course. But his party might finish third or even second and under the proportional system of government here, that pretty much guarantees him a seat in the next ruling coalition.

    His uncompromising voice will leave Netanyahu — the ace tactician — with less wiggle room as he deals with the tricky issues of settlements, Palestinians, war and peace.

    And all that against a backdrop of a new American administration showing signs that it is tired of always having to stick up for its ally, no matter what.

    To Israelis, who live in a tough neighborhood, strong men have always appealed.

    But to survive, many know that this country also needs friends and they fret that Bennett and his like on the hard right will only isolate Israel further.

    Follow NBC / ITV correspondent John Ray on Twitter.

    Related: 

    Jewish settlers voluntarily evacuate West Bank enclave

    Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays out in a rocky field

    Hamas leader returns to Palestinian territories for first time since 1967

  • Arafat's exhumation: Palestinians' desire for truth might be dashed again

    Labs in France, Russia and Switzerland will conduct independent tests of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's bone samples, searching for evidence that he could have been poisoned. NBC's Martin Fletcher reports.

    By John Ray, NBC News

    RAMALLAH, West Bank — For a fateful scene in a murder mystery, it was all a little low key.


    Steel-gray skies, a modest guard of honor and a somber ceremony as Yasser Arafat’s tomb was resealed.

    It had taken scientists from Russia, France and Switzerland just a few hours to gather the evidence they came for.

    No need to exhume the body. Instead they took samples that they will now examine for the deadly radioactive element polonium.

    Already some experts warn that their findings are almost certain to be inconclusive.

    Too much time has elapsed, they caution. And even if investigators find traces of toxin, it won’t answer this question: Who administered the fatal dose?

    Arafat's body exhumed; experts to investigate if he was poisoned

    No matter. Almost any Palestinian you ask already has an answer: Israel is the assassin.

    After all, a man who was to Palestinians the ultimate fighter for freedom was to Israel too often the odious face of terror.

    And in 30 years of conflict the Israelis pursued him to Lebanon before finally cornering him in his West Bank compound, the Muqata’a.

    Rebuilt from the rubble left by its destruction by Israel, it now houses the gleaming marble mausoleum that is Arafat’s final resting place.

    Today it was shrouded in blue sheets to shield the scientists from view as they went about their grim business.

    "The time has come to find the proof. And to bring justice. I think he deserves it, and the Palestinian people deserve it,’’ says noted Palestinian activist Mustafa Barghouti.

    Mohamad Torokman / Reuters

    A Palestinian security forces member walks outside the grave of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Nov. 27, 2012.

    For the record, Israel enters a strenuous plea of not guilty, courtesy of Ra’anan Gissan, who in 2004 was an adviser to Israel’s then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

    Did Israel order the death of Arafat? I ask him.

    "I can tell you, a definite, absolute no,’’ he says. "They used to say that our snipers had Arafat in their sights and the decision was not to kill him."

    Palestinians: Settlers threaten West Bank's centuries-old olive harvest tradition

    Today's examination was prompted by a television investigation that found polonium on samples of clothing, including Arafat's iconic kaffiya headdress, provided by his widow.

    But the timing is fortuitous, even if it is, as the Palestinians on the West Bank insist, a coincidence that later this week Arafat's successor heads to the United Nations.

    Palestinians have begun to exhume the body of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat in an attempt to determine whether he was assassinated by lethal doses of radioactive poison. NBC's John Ray reports.

    Mahmoud Abbas is to ask the UN General Assembly to grant his Palestinian Authority a form of recognition known as non-member observer status.

    It would put the Palestinians on the same diplomatic footing as the Vatican but more crucially on open important legal route to potentially suing the Israel’s occupying forces for war crimes through international courts.

    The mathematics is looking good for Abbas — good news for a leader who hasn’t had much to celebrate of late. 

    His Palestinian rivals in Gaza, the militants of Hamas, have been buoyed by the short war with Israel and claim they’ve achieved more in a week than Abbas has won in nearly a decade of failed negotiation.

    Win at the UN on Thursday, and Abbas has something to show for his strategy. 

    Perhaps then even Yasser Arafat’s spirit might be permitted to rest a little more peacefully.

    Slideshow: Yasser Arafat, in pictures

    AP

    See key moments and memorable scenes from Yasser Arafat's life.

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  • Israeli rhetoric on Iran strike heats up, could impact race for White House

    Nir Elias/ Reuters

    Israelis hold placards during a protest against war with Iran, outside the home of Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv on Sunday evening. The placards read in Hebrew, "Bibi, Ehud - Leave the blasts and the effects to real super heros! Go home!" and "No to war in Iran."

    By John Ray, NBC News

    News Analysis

    TEL AVIV – If the number of column inches in Israel’s newspapers is any kind of accurate measure, the Middle East is in for a nerve-shredding few weeks. 

    Day after day, the topic of Iran’s nuclear program, and the chances of Israel making a pre-emptive strike to destroy Tehran’s nuclear capability, has been headline news.

    For those who fear war and its consequences, none of it has made comforting reading.

    To sum up: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are said to be close to ordering military strikes.

    Ranged against them, according to reports, are much of the defense and intelligence establishment, including the head of the armed forces, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and Mossad chief Tamir Pardo.

    One leaked report on a recent top level meeting in Jerusalem had Netanyahu banging the table in frustration and snapping, "I'm responsible, and if there’s a commission of inquiry later, it's on me."

    So one might say things are heating up, with a new round of fevered speculation sparked by the latest intelligence estimate of Iran’s capabilities.


    "Israel and the United State agree that Tehran has taken an important step towards having a weapon," one defense analyst close to the decision-makers told NBC News, on the condition of anonymity. "For Israel, that is unacceptable. The U.S. agrees, but not about the time-table for action."

    More coverage of Israel on NBCNews.com

    No change there, but the rhetoric is suddenly much sharper.

    On Sunday, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told national radio that it was time to declare the diplomatic efforts to rein in Tehran dead.

    When asked how long Iran should have to declare an end to its nuclear program, Ayalon replied: "Weeks, and not more than that."

    Is the window closing on diplomacy with Iran, before Israel launches a preventive strike against Tehran's nuclear facilities? Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren discusses.

    The judgments on all side are finely balanced –  but the stakes for getting it wrong are unquantifiable.  

    Fears grow of Israel-Iran missile shootout

    The hawks believe the window in which Israel’s forces are able to inflict real damage on Iran’s research facilities is closing fast. America, with its greater firepower, believes the timeline is longer – but the Israelis don't really trust the United States to act.

    U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta devoted a lot of his time in Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago to reassuring Israel, allegedly with the help of detailed military plans, that the United States has Israel’s interests in mind.

    Bold step
    Conversely it is not all clear that Israel has the interests of the White House in mind. A strike before the presidential election on Nov. 6 could have a significant impact on events both in the Middle East and in the United States.

    An Israeli man tries on a gas-mask at a distribution centre on Sunday in Tel Aviv, Israel. Israel opened distribution stations to supply its resident with new gas masks, chemical and biological weapons protection kits. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the threat of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons

    A strike before the election could force the United States to come to Israel’s defense, or blow apart Obama’s campaign.

    More coverage of Iran on NBCNews.com

    That would be, to say the least, a bold step even for Netanyahu.

    "Iran wants to annihilate us. I won't let that happen," the prime minister has said.

    Many observers still dismiss his talk as bluff. If so, then he should congratulate himself for forcing the Iranian nuclear issue high up a world agenda that would otherwise be dominated by Syria.

    It might yet force its way into the race for the White House.

    If it’s not a bluff, then decision time is coming sooner rather than later.

    More world stories from NBC News:

     

  • 'Boiling point': On Lebanon's Syria Street, a civil war brews

    Syria's chaos has come over the border into Lebanon, with gunmen clashing in deadly street battles. NBC's John Ray reports.

    By John Ray, NBC News

    TRIPOLI, Lebanon – It only takes a two-minute stroll down Syria Street to see why so many people are so worried about what might happen next in Lebanon.

    A hole punched through the wall of the mosque by a rocket or mortar shell, smoke-blackened masonry, shops and apartments bearing the pockmarks of fierce gun battles.

    Syria Street is the aptly named thoroughfare that separates rival factions in Lebanon’s second city.

    For much of the past week, the two sides have been waging a mini-civil war.

    It is a direct spill over from the chaos in neighboring Syria.

    Photos: Violence on the streets of Tripoli

    One side of the street is home to a hard-line Sunni Muslim militia who run guns to rebels across the border.

    “President Assad is trying to destroy us,” says Sheik Bilal Masri, by way of explanation. “They cause trouble here to take the pressure of them in Damascus.”

    Since the Syrian crisis broke out, the price of weapons has exploded in neighboring Lebanon. ITN's John Ray meets the rebels buying the weapons and the dealers selling them.

    We meet a small group of his men. They are well-armed and apparently spoiling for a fight.

    Not many yards away, posters of Syria’s President Bashar Assad striking stern military poses adorn walls on the other side of the street.

    Here the people share Assad’s Alawite faith and, it seems, the same determination to defend his regime.

    Omar Ibrahim / Reuters

    A man hides behind sandbags amid clashes in the Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Thursday.

    “No one wants a civil war in Lebanon,” a local Alawite leader tells me.  “But everyone should be warned: There will be repercussion for anyone who tries to meddle in Syria.”

    Conflict along Syria Street is nothing new. But the outside world began to take notice on Monday when for the first time in four years, gun battles broke out on the streets of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

    2 killed, 18 hurt as Syria conflict spills over into Lebanon

    It was a brief glimpse back into the abyss for a nation scarred by years of civil strife.

    In 2005, Syrian troops were forced to withdrawal from Lebanon, but Damascus is still a big player in the fractured politics of a country that sees rival Muslim and Christian sects share power in a set of uneasy alliances.

    Syria’s most powerful friend here is Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group that probably holds the key to whether Lebanon survives in one piece.

    Inside Syria rebel stronghold: 'The city is on mute' 

    Its heartland in the south of Beirut has been tense, but so far its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has kept his forces out of the fray.

    But for how long?

    The fatal shooting of two Sunni clerics followed by the kidnapping of Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in Syria shows how unpredictable events have become.

    A message to Assad? War games held near border

    For more than two decades, Timur Goksel has watched events in Lebanon. Once of the U.N. Mission here, he now lectures at the American University in Beirut.

    He tells me the country has rarely felt so dangerous.

    “I hope I am wrong because this is scary. If the faction leaders lose control of these young guys with the guns then we’re in trouble,” he said.

    Their bloody history has taught the Lebanese to be a fatalistic people.

    “The country is at boiling point,” another seasoned observer told me with a shrug.  “What is coming will be very bad.”

    NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports from war-torn Homs showing how parts of the city have been ravaged by fighting while others spared.

     

    More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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  • Lebanon awash with weapons vital to Syrian uprising

    Since the Syrian crisis broke out, the price of weapons has exploded in neighboring Lebanon. ITN's John Ray meets the rebels buying the weapons and the dealers selling them.

    By msnbc.com staff

    Equipped with rifles and handguns, Syrian rebels have faced a superior enemy armed with tanks and artillery shells for months. But even as many have retreated over the border with Lebanon to train for guerrilla raids, they tell ITN's John Ray they are not considering surrender or ceasefire.

    It's victory or martyrdom, they tell Ray.

    "We need weapons, armor-piercing weapons," one masked rebel says.

    In Beirut, there is no shortage of weapons from dealers with global connections. Since the Syrian crisis broke out, the price of weapons has exploded, a dealer tells Ray, but these weapons continue to be vital to the Syrian uprising.

    And rebels are determined to obtain these weapons at all cost, even as some dealers say they're forbidden to sell to rebels.

    ITN's John Ray contributed to this report.

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  • For Palestinians, hunger striker release a 'great victory'

    A Palestinian boy holds a poster with an image of Islamic Jihad member Khader Adnan during a news conference announcing his upcoming release outside Adnan's home in the West Bank village of Arabeh, near Jenin, on Tuesday.

    By John Ray, NBC News

    ARABEH, West Bank – For a moment Randa Adnan’s dark, defiant eyes, the only part of her face visible behind a white veil, softened with tears.

    NBC News was at her home for an interview Tuesday and we had just passed on the news that her husband, Khader Adnan, a Palestinian prisoner, had agreed to end his two-month hunger strike after reaching a deal with Israel’s Justice Ministry that it would release him in April.   

    Adnan, 33, had starved himself, refusing food for 66 days, to protest against Israel’s controversial policy of holding suspected Palestinian militants without charge. He was arrested in his West Bank home on Dec. 17 – but neither he, nor his legal team, were ever told the evidence against him.

    The Israeli authorities would say only this of his case: “Adnan’s detention stems from involvement in actions that threaten regional security.”

    In 2008, Adnan was convicted of membership of Islamic Jihad, the outlawed extremist group that has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks. But his family insists he has never been party to any violent act.

    His wife was overjoyed at the news of his imminent release.

    “By God’s will, I am proud of him. Not just as a husband, but as a leader of our people. This is a great victory,’’ she said.

    Randa Adnan is the mother of two daughters, with a third child, a son, on the way.

    “I swear I felt him kick inside when you told me the news,” she smiled.

    Anti-terror tool
    Over the past few weeks, Adnan’s case has become a cause célèbre – his face, in graffiti form, has come to adorn security walls all over the West Bank and has been emblazoned on dozens of flags flown at protest marches.

    He is just one of some 300 Palestinians held without proper trial in Israel, on the basis of secret intelligence dossiers, a practice known as “administrative detention.” It is a highly controversial practice that is bitterly criticized by human rights groups, but according to the Israeli military, extremely effective in protecting the security of the state.

    In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser to the Israeli government, explained one of the reasons why the legal loophole is used. “The first is that you know someone is planning an attack, but you can't prove it through a legal process. If you relied on the legal process, the suspect would go free, but the risk [to the public] would be very high.  
     
    Alan Baker, one of Israel’s leading lawyers and a former senior legal adviser to the Israeli military, explained another reason commonly cited for administrative detention: to protect the highly sensitive sources.

    “There are times when you cannot make evidence against some individual public,” said Baker.  In other words, the information is so sensitive that revealing it publicly might threaten the safety of the informant. 

    Mohamad Torokman / Reuters

    Palestinians hold a banner with an image of Islamic Jihad member Khader Adnan during a protest in his support in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday before his release was announced. The banner reads, "Freedom for Khader Adnan and for all prisoners."

    But Adnan’s case, Baker said, might now make the authorities think twice about imposing detention orders. “It’ll keep them on their toes,” he said.

    For his part, Adnan’s lawyer, Jawad Bulos, said the deal that will free his client is a “painful compromise.”

    Asked whether he thinks the case might encourage other Palestinian detainees to starve themselves in return for freedom, he paused for a moment, pondering the personal stamina that requires. “Adnan was a special man. In all my experience of cases, I have never met anyone quite like him.’’

    Adnan will probably spend the rest of his sentence in a hospital. His hunger strike has left him gravely ill. His family still fears he might not recover.