We, thousands of Palestinian detainees, have been thrown by the Israeli authorities into Ansar-3 Detention Centre, without regard to the most rudimentary judicial formalities, including our right to know the charges levelled against us. We are kept in difficult circumstances under the burning desert sun, where the temperature by day reaches 45°C and drops to below freezing at night; in an area teaming with reptiles, insects and rats. But the severity of nature is no match for the cruelty of the soldiers of the Detention Centre, with their arbitrariness and constant brutality and violence.

"Our Production Is Our Pride" is a Palestinian women's development project in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Its aim is to establish women's co-operatives based on the pro­duction and marketing of Palestinian agricultural products.

Soon after the eruption of the Palestinian uprising (December 1987), a clandestine United National Leadership (UNL) began to lead, plan and direct the struggle. The UNL has published a series of numbered and dated communiques (bayanat), which have had an important role in mobilizing the masses and directing their struggle. We publish here a full translation of recent communiques: nos 16, 18 and 20, and a summary of no 19.

Palestinian women have played a leading role in the demonstrations, not fearing death but crying out: "Victory or martyrdom, but no to the occupation". At the same time, women have organized them­selves in relief committees to help the people who suffer during the uprising. They have also put themselves to danger by trying to rescue youths who are being beaten up by Israeli soldiers. As all other Palestinians, Palestinian women have been subjected to beating, imprisonment and martyrdom.

In Hebrew, yesh gvul means "there is a limit"; it also means "there is a border". A protest group by this name came into being in Israel following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Its members pledged themselves to refuse to do military service in Lebanon. More recently, during the Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories, the group extended its pledge and it now covers refusal to take part in the Israeli repressions in those territories.

This letter is on behalf of an organization of faculty members at Tel Aviv University called 'Ad-Kan ("No Morel"), an ad hoc group formed in response to the extreme gravity of the situation in the occupied territories. While the members of 'Ad-Kan hold diverse political views, they are united in their commitment to bring an end to the occupation through negotiations with the Palestinians on the basis of mutual recognition and equality.