Ramallah's struggle for survival

Selwa Dheis is looking at her office window.

"Yesterday, I saw their laundry hanging there," she says. "It seems they are here to stay."

Two tanks and two armoured personnel carriers block the door to the building where Selwa has worked for 15 years. She does research on economic development and human rights for a non-governmental organisation called the Miteen group.

She last left her workplace in a hurry, hearing that Israeli soldiers were about to invade. Now it has been turned into the army's operations headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"We have lots of very rare and unpublished documents and books," she says.

"My computer, actually my whole life is in there, including my 15-year-old cactus which I think is dead by now, it's awful."