Middle East Monitor - The Latest from the Middle East

The rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas announced last week that they have reached an agreement to form a transitional government to run Palestinian institutions in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and are preparing for general elections within the next three months.

A few days after this, deputy Hamas leader, Mosa abu-Marzouq, told the London based newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that there are no discrepancies between the two parties and both maintain good contacts with each other.

On Tuesday night at Senate House, SOAS University, Middle East Monitor (MEMO) hosted an evening with former Egyptian presidential candidate Abdallah Alashaal. Alashaal founded the Free Egypt Party after the 2011 revolution; he is a former Egyptian diplomat with knowledge of Gulf, Arab, Islamic and African affairs and is currently head of the National Council for Human Rights.

The event, chaired by Professor Bill Bowring who is a barrister at Field Court Chambers, focused on the past and future of Egypt and Palestine’s relationship. Bowring stated he had a long time interest in peace in the Middle East after visiting Palestine in 1988 at the beginning of the first Intifada. Prior to this he had "no interest whatsoever in international law, human rights or humanitarian law, but being there, in those circumstances, really opened my eyes." In May 2011, Bowring and a group of colleagues, housing lawyers specializing in eviction, visited East Jerusalem and published the report 'Enforcing Housing Rights: The Case of Sheikh Jarrah' on the results of their fact-finding mission.

It is not surprising, or even unexpected, to see settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem attacking and threatening the lives of Palestinians, destroying their properties, ruining their farms and targeting their holy sites. These attacks have not stopped since the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem and since settlements and judaisation in the region began.

To list examples, it would be enough to mention the attempts of these settlers to assassinate three elected Palestinian Mayors: Basam Al shakaa from Nablus, Karim Khalaf from Ramallah, and Ibrahim Altawil from Albira in 1980. Yet they also attacked students of Hebron University in 1984, attempted to poison water tanks at the schools of Jenin municipality in 1984, and stationed Rabbi Kiryat Arba in front of Dheisheh refugee camp for two years. In addition, settler Baruch Goldstein committed the massacre of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1993.

A Palestinian agricultural researcher has succeeded in producing 7 to 12 ears of wheat from a single seed each containing exactly 100 seeds.

This is one of four other successful experiments carried out by the agricultural engineer, Ali Odwan, the head of Beit-Hanoun Agricultural School.

Odwan expected that the result of his new successful experiment would increase wheat yields in the Gaza Strip because it doubles the wheat produced. "About 24 per cent of Gaza's land is, which is mainly deserted agricultural spaces near the Gaza borders, will be developed," he said.

In the wake of the liberation of the seven Egyptian soldiers kidnapped by armed groups in the Sinai Peninsula, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday called for the kidnappers to give up their arms saying: "Weapons must only be carried by the army and the police."

In his first speech after receiving the soldiers and their families in Almaza military airbase in Cairo, Morsi said: "Those who possess arms must submit them to the government and those who are oppressed must raise a complaint. Then, over all law enforcement will be achieved."

The Israeli central court in Beersheba has compelled two men from the Alsid village to demolish their own homes before they were demolished by bulldozers and fined them large sums of money on top of fees that must be paid to bulldozers.

This left the two young men with no choice but to demolish their own homes so as to avoid paying fines that could exceed 500 shekels should the interior ministry bulldozers be called in.

In the age of the internet, it's impossible to delete anything - as Al Jazeera discovered this week. Last Tuesday, Al Jazeera English published a long comment piece on its website. It was written by Joseph Massad, a Middle East scholar at Columbia University, who has written for the media giant's website for the last two years.

The piece was entitled "The Last of the Semites" and was, undoubtedly, controversial. Massad's piece looked at the early Zionist movement and its shared goal with anti-Semitic bigots: the removal of Jews from Europe. He also examined disagreements between Jews in Europe about the principle of Zionism, writing that many did not want to uproot to a new homeland.

Turkey is greatly disappointed by the meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and American President Barack Obama in Washington last week. Talk of Syria took up most of their time on Thursday, both during the day, and during dinner that night. The Turkish leader tried to explain his country's position to his American counterpart by saying that the Syrian crisis is Turkey's biggest challenge in decades. He also said that Ankara is requesting that Washington "As a friendly ally, play a larger role in contributing to changing the reality" on the ground in Syria.

A senior Jordanian government official has denied that Jordan has closed its borders to Syrian refugees over the past few days, and stressed that the border remained open to refugees as usual.

He told Al-Ghad newspaper that "Jordanian procedures are proceeding on as usual," and pointed out that the Syrian army's resumption of control over the areas near the Jordanian border might have limited the number of those fleeing to the Jordanian kingdom.

About a million landmines have been planted by the Israeli occupation in occupied Palestinian West Bank, official Palestinian data has shown.

The Commissioner General of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in Washington, Maan Erekat, said: "The number of Israeli landmines planted is between 800,000 to a million."

On Wednesday night, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh phoned Al-Areesh Governor, Abdel Fatah Harhour, and congratulated him on the release and safe return of some recently detained soldiers. He also thanked him for his kindness and hospitality towards the Palestinian people who were held up on the Egyptian side during the crisis.

Haniyeh highlighted the strong relations between Palestine and Egypt, and wished Egypt security and stability. He also stressed that "security in Sinai is an integral part of Palestinian national security."

Settlers from the Gush Etzion settlement have expressed outrage after discovering that they belong to the State of Palestine on the global search engine of Google, as stated on the website of the Hebrew-language newspaper Israel Today. The paper reported that Gush Etzion's settlers described Google's act as "outrageous."

The paper reported that when settlers tried to search on the Google search engine, a note appeared in front of them notifying the need to search by "Google Palestine google.ps" and not "Google Israel google.co.il" as they had done in the past.

An Israeli settler ran over a Palestinian boy on Thursday morning near the West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinian medical sources said the boy sustained serious injuries.

A Palestinian activist in Israeli settlement file Ghassan Daglas told Quds Press news agency that "The settler ran over Zaaria Asaous, 15, while he was crossing the main street in Beita village near Nablus."

The election landscape in Iran is becoming increasingly clear. According to state-run Press TV, a whopping 686 candidates registered to run in the presidential poll. However, only eight men remain on the ballot for the first round on June 14 after candidates were vetted by the Guardian Council, which consists of 12 members - half of whom were appointed by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Most are seen as loyalists to Khamenei, while those rejected included former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, a close aide to outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.