GAZA CITY/RAMALLAH Wednesday, January 07, 2009 (IRIN) - Civilians are finding it increasingly difficult to find food in Gaza. Markets opened briefly in Gaza City on 5 January, but they had little to offer, according to residents. Queues for bread formed, with buyers limited to five shekels worth per person - about 35 flat breads - not enough for families with an average of six children.

SANAA Wednesday, January 07, 2009 (IRIN) - Maha (not her real name), 22, has been a commercial sex worker since she was 17. She told IRIN she and her sister were forced into prostitution to provide food and medical treatment for their ailing mother.

GAZA CITY/RAMALLAH Tuesday, January 06, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has over 10,000 staff in Gaza, but their deployment has been severely restricted due to Israeli bombing and tank shelling, UNRWA spokesman Sami Mshasha said.

DUBAI Tuesday, January 06, 2009 (IRIN) - January is one of the coldest months of the year… but in these cold conditions, we have to leave windows partially open to prevent them from shattering in the bombardments.

BAGHDAD Tuesday, January 06, 2009 (IRIN) - Lack of government funds could force the Ministry of Displacement and Migration to postpone until 2010 some housing projects designed to ease internal displacement, an official told IRIN on 4 January.

GENEVA Monday, January 05, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN has warned that power networks were down in large parts of the Gaza Strip on 4 January, with hospitals relying on generators. Without power for pumps, 70 percent of Gazans are estimated to be without tap water.

NEGEV Monday, January 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Israeli cities and towns within range of Palestinian militants’ rockets fired from Gaza have air raid shelters, but Bedouins in the Negev desert outside Beer Sheba, southern Israel, say they are being treated unfairly and have nowhere to hide.

SANAA Monday, January 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Members of the small Jewish community of some 270 people in Amran Governorate, northern Yemen, say they have been receiving renewed death threats from their Muslim neighbours since the start of the Israeli offensive against Gaza on 27 December.

BAGHDAD Sunday, January 04, 2009 (IRIN) - An Iraqi government survey conducted late 2008 has found that 95 percent of Iraqi families would prefer to keep the state’s free food programme running rather than replace it with financial aid, a government spokesman said on 3 January.

NETANYA Friday, January 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Zulfira has been living in Sderot near the border with Gaza for 14 years. For the past eight years she endured Kassam rockets fired from Gaza. “I just pray,” she said.

BAGHDAD Thursday, January 01, 2009 (IRIN) - A women’s rights activist and a Baghdad government official agree that the government needs to take action to help the huge number of widows in Iraq - but they disagree on how to proceed.

GAZA CITY Wednesday, December 31, 2008 (IRIN) - In Gaza’s main hospital, the director’s office is under virtual siege, according to an IRIN journalist in Gaza. Relatives of the injured are desperate to get their kin transferred to Egypt for emergency treatment. There is a fear here that the already overstretched healthcare system will collapse if Israel mounts a ground offensive into the tiny coastal strip.

GAZA CITY Tuesday, December 30, 2008 (IRIN) - Gaza’s main hospital, Al-Shifa, is struggling to cope with the influx of people injured in the Israeli air strikes which started on 27 December, according to medical sources. Staff and patients are also fearful Israel might target it, as the leaders of Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the enclave, have held press conferences there.

TEL AVIV Tuesday, December 30, 2008 (IRIN) - Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, yesterday agreed to allow medical aid and food supplies into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing - even as Israeli military operations continued in Gaza, and Hamas militants fired rockets into southern Israel.

GAZA CITY Monday, December 29, 2008 (IRIN) - As a result of a major offensive on 27 December by Israel against Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza, a dire humanitarian situation looms, according to aid officials.

SANAA Monday, December 29, 2008 (IRIN) - A new US-funded project aims to raise awareness of, and significantly reduce, child labour in four of Yemen’s 21 governorates.

AMMAN Thursday, December 25, 2008 (IRIN) - Jordan's plight with drought has been highlighted this year with almost no rain falling on the kingdom, prompting officials to call on citizens to pray for rain on Friday 26 December.

SANAA Wednesday, December 24, 2008 (IRIN) - Members of the Jewish community in Amran Governorate, northern Yemen, say they fear being attacked by Muslim extremists, after Moshe Yaish Josef Nahari, a Jewish teacher, was gunned down on 11 December in Raydah District.

MUKALLA Tuesday, December 23, 2008 (IRIN) - Local NGOs, working in tandem with the military, made a significant contribution to helping people affected by the late October floods in Hadramaut and Al-Mahra governorates, southeastern Yemen.

GAZA CITY Friday, December 19, 2008 (IRIN) - The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) was forced to suspend its emergency and regular food distribution services in the Gaza Strip without warning on 18 December, due to the continued closure of all commercial and passenger border crossings.