Ireland holds a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, an agreement aimed at strengthening the European Union by creating a full-time president and foreign-policy chief. The treaty must be unanimously accepted by all 27 member states. Ireland, which voted “no” in a similar referendum last year, is one of the last hold outs.

Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s appeal of her most recent sentencing is rejected. The pro-democracy leader was convicted and sentenced to 18 additional months of house arrest for having allowed an uninvited American to stay in her home while under a previous house arrest.

The International Olympic Committee hears final presentations from the four cities competing to host the 2016 Summer Olympics — Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio de Janeiro. President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama give an emotional speech on behalf of their hometown, Chicago. A decision is expected by 12:30 p.m. Eastern time.

The U.S. will withdraw 4,000 troops from Iraq by the end of October and is on track to withdraw all combat troops by September 2010, according to an advanced copy of an address that General Ray Odierno, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, is expected to give to the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee today.

Israel plans to release 20 female Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a videotape that proves that an Israel soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian militants in 2006, is still alive.

Pakistani and Indian reports obtained by The New York Times show that ten months after terrorists killed 163 people in Mumbai, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani militant organization behind the attacks, is still intact and determined to strike India again.

Talks between Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers begin tomorrow in Geneva.

Earlier this morning, President Obama spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a meeting which a senior administration source called “businesslike.” Expressing his impatience, Obama told the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, “We’ve had enough of talks….it’s time to move forward.”

Residents of Sydney, Australia awake to an eerie orange sky as the worst dust storms in at least 70 years engulf the city and move north towards Queensland.

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology officially opens. The university, which boasts the world’s 14th fastest supercomputer and one of the world’s largest endowments, could also become a cultural battleground in this conservative country — the school is co-ed, and female students will mix freely with males and will not be required to wear veils.

World leaders gather in New York this week for the U.N. general assembly; among them are new presidents of the U.S., Russia and China, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, attending for the first time. Issues to be discussed include climate change and nuclear proliferation.

President Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. general assembly on Tuesday, but does not have “grand expectations” for the meeting.

More than 140 rebels are killed as the Yemeni army fights back a major offensive in the northern city of Sadah. The clash is the bloodiest since Houthi rebels began fighting with goverment forces in 2004.

Four U.S. soldiers operating under NATO are killed in a bomb blast in southern Afghanistan, making the 2009 death toll for foreign forces in Afghanistan the highest since the war began nearly eight years ago.

Negotiations to exchange an Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas for hundreds of jailed Palestinians are advanced by German involvement. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in London for talks with his U.K. counterpart Gordon Brown to discuss the Middle East peace process.

An Iranian prosecutor calls for “maximum punishment” of a senior reformer for acting against national security, in the fourth mass trial of moderates after Iran’s disputed election. Saeed Hajjarian, disabled by an assassination attempt in 2000, is accused of fomenting unrest and having contacts with British intelligence.

South Korea fails to send its scientific satellite into orbit after launching its first rocket into space. The rocket successfully lifted off from the country’s launch pad on the southern coast but failed to put an attached scientific satellite into the target orbit.

Chinese President Hu Jintao makes his first trip to Xinjiang after last month’s deadly ethnic riots. At the same time, there is confusion about how many rioters will face criminal charges and when their trial will start.

“ A moving…documentary”
–Globe and Mail

When a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was killed in the West Bank city of Jenin by Israeli soldiers who mistook his toy gun for the real thing, it could have been just one more blip on the news: one more war, one more child, one more human tragedy that ripped the heart out of a family and a community, but rippled no further into the world’s consciousness.

But something extraordinary happened that turned Ahmed Khatib’s tragic 2005 death into a gift of hope for six Israelis whose lives were on the line: while overwhelmed with grief, Ahmed’s parents consented to donating their son’s organs. Suddenly, amid the violence and entrenched hatred surrounding an intractable conflict, a simple act of humanity rose above the clamor and captured worldwide attention.

Heart of Jenin tells the story of Ahmed’s tragic death and his father Ismael Khatib’s journey to visit three of the organ recipients two years later. One of Ahmed’s kidneys went to an Orthodox Jewish girl and his other kidney went to a Bedouin boy. While his parents hesitated to donate Ahmed’s heart, it now beats in the chest of a Druze girl.

“I see my son in these children,” Khatib says.

Crossing from northern Israel to the Negev desert and ending up in Jerusalem, Khatib encounters every complexity of the conflict: deep-seated animosity, hardened judgments, and heartfelt generosity. While laying bare the deep divisions between Israelis and Palestinians, Heart of Jenin offers a rare vision of common humanity and hope.

The Jenin camp looks like an established city because it has been there since 1953. It is one of 58 Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria where an estimated 1.3 million Palestinians live.

The camps were created when Palestinians were expelled from their homes in 1948 during the creation of Israel, and again after Israel occupied additional land in 1967.

Click on the green markers in this map to learn more about these camps. Use the + button to zoom in and click on overlapping markers.

View Palestinian Refugee Camps in a larger map

Details and photographs in this map are provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which was established after the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict and operates many of the camps.

UNRWA defines a camp as a plot of land provided by the host government for accommodating Palestinian refugees. Population refers to the number of registered refugees living in the camp.

Ismael Khatib

After the death of his son Ahmed, Ismael Khatib opened the Ahmed Khatib Center for Peace to provide children from the Jenin refugee camp with an alternative to life on the streets. A filmmaking course became one of the center’s most popular programs, but there was no place to show the films that the children produced.

With the help of Heart of Jenin filmmaker Marcus Vetter, Khatib launched an effort to restore and reopen Cinema Jenin, a movie theater that had been closed since 1987, to provide such a venue.

The children at the center have already started rebuilding the cinema. They hope to show their first films in the new theater later this summer. Click here to see some of their films.

Samah Gadban

Samah is now in 10th grade at the local high school in her small village of Pkiin in northern Israel. She still has routine checkups at the same hospital, the Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah-Tikva, but has not had any major complications from the heart transplant and continues to be healthy and strong.

Mohamed Kabua

Mohamed is now in 2nd grade at a school in his Bedouin village in the Negev Desert in Israel. He remains a very active boy, helping his father on their farm and in their small rural home.

Menuha Rivka Levinson

Menuha Rivka is now in 2nd grade in Jerusalem. She has occasional check-ups at the Hadasa Ein-Karem Hospital in Jerusalem, but remains healthy.

The tragic death of 12-year-old Ahmed Khatib drove his family into deep despair. But in the first decisive hours after his death, his father Ismael was presented with a great decision and chose to transform his personal grief into a miracle for others. I heard about Ismael’s story on the morning of Ahmed’s death, and that same evening I began to film the incredible sequence of events that ultimately lead to the operations on the children who now live happily with Ahmed’s donated organs.

The families of these children owe Ismael Khatib thanks because he gave them the gift of life. We are indebted to Ismael Khatib because he gave us hope.

Marcus Vetter

In the fall of 2007, I received a call from the production company EIKON in Berlin asking if I was interested in joining this film. I quickly agreed: the theme intrigued me, and I was excited for the opportunity to work with an Israeli director.

Leon Geller had already begun work on the film. Geller is Jewish, and the two of us often had different opinions, especially regarding the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. More than anything, he wanted to tell the personal story of the relationship between Ismael Khatib and Samah, the Druze girl who received the heart from Ahmed. My goal, on the other hand, was to use Ismael’s story to shed some light on the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

Perhaps the most important goal of the film was to help break down prejudice. In the film, one comes to know only friendly and good people — for example the happy Bedouin father who is always laughing, even when explaining that his house could be destroyed at any moment. For me, the whole cast of protagonists is truly special, and they help expand our understanding of peoples and cultures.

CIA World Factbook: West Bank
Information about the West Bank’s geography, population, government, military and economy.

BBC Country Profile: Israel and Palestinian Territories
Information about Israel and Palestine’s history, leadership, and media, with links to BBC stories on the country.

New York Times Topics: Israel
Links to both breaking news and archive material, as well as some general information about the country.

New York Times Topics: West Bank
Links to both breaking news and archive material, as well as some general information about the territory.

UNRWA Refugee Camp Profile: Jenin
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) site profiles the history of the Jenin refugee camp from its establishment in 1953 through the present.

Human Rights Watch Report: Jenin
An investigation by Human Rights Watch into the April 2002 Israeli Defense Forces military operation inside of the Jenin refugee camp.

Now on PBS: Peace and Prosperity on the West Bank?
Now on PBS visits Jenin and interviews Tony Blair, the international community’s envoy to the region.

THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT AND THE PEACE PROCESS

The Middle East 1916-2001: A Documentary Record
Yale Law School’s Avalon Project database of Middle East Documents which includes the full text of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1978 Camp David Accords, the 1993 Oslo Accords, the 2001 Mitchell Report on Israeli-Palestinian Violence, the 2003 Roadmap for Peace in the Middle East, etc.

U.N. Resolutions and the Middle East
CFR.org Backgrounder site includes links to United Nations resolutions that relate to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

WIDE ANGLE: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Timeline
A timeline of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the 2004 WIDE ANGLE episode “Suicide Bombers.”

Online NewsHour: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Ongoing coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including interactive maps, extended interviews, and background reports.

Council on Foreign Relations: Crisis Guide: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
An interactive and historical guide to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the beginning of the British Mandate in 1914 through the present, including a video, timeline, interactive map, quiz, and additional resources.

International Crisis Group: Conflict History: Israel/Occupied Territories
A detailed, historical explanation of each of the periods of the conflict from 1947 through 2006.

The Mideast: A Century of Conflict
An NPR seven-part series that traces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

ORGAN DONATION AND RELIGION

The Gift of a Lifetime: Understanding Donation
A comprehensive list of how different religious organizations view organ and tissue donation.

PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly
May 31, 2002 Religion and Ethics Newsweekly cover story on the ethics of organ donation in the United States.

A Heart from Jenin
A Swedish film that tells the Khatibs’ story from the mother’s perspective.

A Yemenia Airways plane en route to the island-nation of Comoros, located off the coast of Mozambique, crashes into the Indian Ocean. Rescue workers are searching for more survivors after a finding a young survivor among the Airbus A310-300 debris.

The annual inflation rate for the Eurozone, the area of the 16 European nations which use the Euro, turns negative for the first time since the introduction of the unified currency in 1999. Although the European Central Bank falls below its target annual rate, it does not plan to cut its borrowing amount.

Israeli senior ministers discuss temporarily halting construction of West Bank settlements hours before a planned meeting between Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak and U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell. In an interview with the New York Times, Barak states, “We should not isolate this issue of settlements and make it the most important one. It has to be discussed in the context of a larger peace discussion.”

Japan’s unemployment rate is the lowest in five years and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare states, “The severity of the (employment) situation is increasing further.” Japanese companies fearful of a slow national economic recovery are reluctant to hire workers despite fiscal improvements within the nation’s corporate and manufacturing sectors. In the Tokyo neighborhood of Koenji, Japanese youth denounce the lack of employment opportunities.

Sudan announces military preparedness for a possible incursion from Chad’s armed forces. Tensions escalate between the neighboring countries in recent weeks after each nation accuses the other of supporting rebel troops.

Up to 700,000 civilians in Pakistan’s Swat Valley are caught in the intensifying fighting between Pakistan government forces and Taliban fighters, while Pakistani government officials say that 1.3 million have been displaced due to the operations.

In Bethlehem, Pope Benedict XVI calls for a sovereign Palestinian homeland while praying for an end to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The United States is elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council for the first time ever in spite of concerns about the U.S. use of capital punishment and harsh interrogation practices.

Arriving in Israel on his first visit to the Middle East as pope, Benedict XVI expresses support for a two-state solution and speaks out against anti-Semitism, calling it “totally unacceptable.”

The United Nations calls situation in Sri Lanka a “bloodbath” after as many as 1,000 civilians are killed during the shelling of a Tamil Tigers stronghold this weekend.

President Obama chooses Egypt as the place to deliver his promised adress to the Muslim world.