Trapped families caught in Gaza firefight
One man was killed and 10 wounded when Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen exchanged fire at a main border crossing between Israel and Gaza yesterday. Hundreds of Palestinians were trapped at the Erez crossing, hoping to escape through Israel to the West Bank, when fighting broke out.
Israeli forces bar ambulances from reaching Palestinian side of the Erez crossing
Local media sources today reported that the Israeli army had today prevented Israeli medics from accessing the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing, arguing that members of Hamas could possibly take advantage of their presence and smuggle themselves into Israel.
Olmert, Bush plan crackdown on 'terrorist' Gaza
ISRAEL plans to tighten a financial clampdown on Hamas-ruled Gaza, denying it access to funds, including Palestinian tax revenues released to President Mahmoud Abbas, senior officials say.
Gaza Christians ask for protection
"The masked men used rocket-propelled grenades to storm the main entrances of the school and church," said the Rev. Manuel Musalam. "They destroyed almost everything inside."
Gaza Christians anxious but resolute over Hamas
Ripples of anxiety shot through Gaza's tiny Christian community after a gang of arsonists and looters attacked a small convent, but most refuse to panic after Hamas seized the Palestinian territory.
Alan Johnston's kidnap ordeal could end in bloodshed as rivals battle over his freedom
Alan Johnston's kidnap ordeal in Gaza threatened to end in bloodshed as rival Palestinian factions prepared to battle over his freedom.
Fatah Central Cmte. decides to completely cut off Hamas ties
Fatah strongman Mohammad Dahlan on Tuesday branded Hamas' seizure of the Gaza Strip last week an "occupation," as his party decided to severe all ties with the Islamic group, a member of the group's central committee said.
Egypt to move its diplomats from Gaza to West Bank - report
Cairo/Gaza - Egypt is set to move its diplomatic delegation from Gaza City to Ramallah in the West Bank soon 'to support the emergency (Palestinian) government,' a credible source told pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper Tuesday.
Gazans stream to crossing with Israel, seeking sanctuary in West Bank
Hundreds of terrified Gazans fleeing Hamas rule were trapped at a main crossing with Israel on Tuesday, hoping to gain permission to pass through Israeli territory to sanctuary in the West Bank.
In the West Bank, Palestinians revive the 'Jordanian option'
Mahmoud Abbas may be showered with international support but he will have an uphill struggle to re-instil hopes of a Palestinian state, to judge by the four owners of small businesses who gathered for tea and political argument in the Al Amari Refugee Camp in the West Bank capital, Ramallah.
Hamas accuses West of playing politics with aid
The Islamists of Hamas accused the West on Tuesday of playing politics with Palestinian aid after it resumed assistance to the government in the West Bank while their Gaza bastion remains under Israeli blockade.
U.S. Lifts Embargo To Help Abbas
" Rice, asked about the legality of Abbas's actions, said: "Our view, very strongly, is that what President Abbas has done is legitimate and it is responsible and we're going to support that action." Other U.S. officials, speaking privately, said they had little concern that legal niceties were being ignored, given Hamas's power grab. "How do I put this diplomatically? Who cares?" said Ghaith al-Omari, a former Abbas aide now at the New America Foundation. "It is the politics of survival now."
Economic boycott on PA lifted
The European Union lifted its boycott of the Palestinian Authority yesterday and is resuming relations and aid transfers. The EU also strongly condemned what it described as a "violent overthrow" in Gaza by the "Hamas militias."
Advice from Dennis Ross
"Our focus now must be on increasing the chances that Fatah will win the competition..Should we be pressing Israel to provide electricity to Gaza in an open-ended fashion if Hamas is going to fire rockets into Israel?..we need to forge a consensus with Arab leaders, especially the Saudis, on investing in the non-Hamas Palestinians."
"Hamastan" vs. "Fatahstan"
"Dahlan stands for everything the Hamas extremists hate: He took part in the secret peace negotiations between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel. He has long maintained contacts with U.S. and Israeli intelligence, placing him at the top of Hamas' death list as a collaborator and traitor to the Palestinian cause. Early this year he was asked whether he was afraid. "Forget it," he answered, "not for a second." Dahlan insisted that he stood behind his men 100 percent. "We will do everything, I repeat, everything, to protect the Fatah activists," he said at the time. But when the Islamists in Hamas began the last stage of their fratricidal war against Fatah secularists last week, there was no trace of Dahlan. He had gone abroad weeks earlier, officially to undergo knee surgery, and seemed in no hurry to return. He was in Cairo when he learned of the first casualties within Fatah. Instead of hurrying back to the Gaza Strip to lead a counteroffensive, he went into hiding in the West Bank."
Hamas in control of Gaza news
Hamas took over the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) building in Gaza over the weekend canceling all productions there. The organization is currently using the confiscated broadcasting equipment, seized studios and appropriated archives for their own programming.
PLC: "Fateh gunmen and PA security men burnt the house of detained PLC head"
The Palestinian Legislative Council, dominated by Hamas, issued a press release on Monday accusing members of Fateh's armed wing, the Al Aqsa Brigades, and the security forces loyal to Fateh of breaking into, and burning the house of the jailed head of the Legislative Council (PLC), Dr. Aziz dweik.
Haneya chairs national unity cabinet meeting in Gaza
Ismail Haneya, Prime Minister of the Palestinian unity government sacked by President Mahmoud Abbas two days ago, chaired a meeting of his cabinet in Gaza City, Haneya's office said Tuesday.
Palestinians won't accept a Vichy government
The vast bulk of Palestinians, at home and in the Diaspora, will not accept a quisling government in Ramallah that might be at Israel's beck and call. This is precisely what the Bush administration and Israel expect the new government, headed by Salam Fayyad, to be. Of course, it is entirely up to Fayyad and his cabinet to prove the falseness of Israeli bedding and American expectations.
Let Hamas govern
Hamas is the actual power in Gaza now. The Palestinian president's response , dissolving the government of unity, declaring a state of emergency and then appointing a new government from which Hamas is totally excluded is hopeless and it would lead to nothing but destroying Palestinian democracy and farther bloodshed.
Bush says hopes to strengthen Abbas
US President Bush tells PM Olmert during White House meeting his administration is looking to bolster Palestinian president, new government against Hamas; says all options on the table in dealing with Iranian nuclear threat .
Whose Coup, Exactly?
Having sacked Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and dissolved his democratically-elected government, Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas has now installed Salam Fayyad as the new Prime Minister, to the clear delight of the West. Mutual accusations are hurled by Abbas and Haniyeh that the other side launched a coup against the legitimate authority. Nevertheless, now a fresh line of grave Palestinian faces has lined up before the cameras as Fayyad's new "emergency government" is sworn in. That the new PA has virtually no power in the West Bank, and none at all in Gaza, is the first glaring problem with this pageantry. (Bitter jokes about a 'two-state solution' consisting of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have circulated.)
Was it really Dahlan's fault?
It is easy for Fatah leaders to lay the blame for their failure in fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Mohammed Dahlan. In his latest job, as national security adviser to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Dahlan took responsibility for the Fatah security organizations - the forces who were defeated in the Strip. Furthermore, during the fighting, Dahlan was not in Gaza. Nearly the entire leadership of the group in the Strip, who are all considered his associates, have fled the area, fearing for their lives. Overall responsibility is therefore being laid at his feet.
Soldier threatens left-wing activist
'We'll kill you and castrate you,' threatened an IDF soldier in a phone call to a left-wing activist who takes part in controversial protests against army checkpoints. Soldier now facing court martial .
MK Taha: Lieberman threatened my life
Balad MK told by Yisrael Beitenu chairman, 'I hope Hamas deals with you; your day will come,' turns to attorney general demanding examination of criminal liability for these remarks.
">Refugee numbers up for the first time in five years - UNHCR
GENEVA - The number of refugees in the world has increased for the first time since 2002, largely as a result of the crisis in Iraq, the UN refugee agency said today.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SHES-74AS26?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR
Letter from a Palestinian Camp
For 59 years Palestinians have been waiting to return to their rightful homes in Palestine under UN Resolution 194. They have waited for this right in Palestinian refugee camps in occupied Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon as well as in the diaspora. By comparison refugee camps in Lebanon and restrictions on Palestinians in Lebanon are worse than the conditions in Jordan, Syria, and in some respects to those in occupied Palestine. But for all of these Palestinians King's words ring true; Palestinians have waited far too long for their rights within the national spaces in which they reside and under international law.
Edward W. Said: A son of Jerusalem
Said wrote his first political essay, "The Arab Portrayed," in response to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's 1969 declaration that "There are no Palestinians." By 1970, he was immersed completely in politics and the Palestinian resistance movement. His second major work, "Beginnings" (1975), was an ambitious attempt to examine the notion of the 'point of departure' in literature. In 1991, Said was diagnosed with leukemia, which he fought for the last 12 years of his life, passing away Sept. 25, 2003 at age 68 in New York City. With Said's death, the Palestinian nation lost its most articulate – and irreplaceable – voice in the Northern hemisphere, but his legacy will endure.
PA, R.I.P
Recent events have quickly resulted in a situation which many people have been urging Hamas to bring about by itself. Hamas resisted the dissolution of the PA and kept pursuing the mirage of "national unity" with the people it knew of being collaborators with Israel and stooges who get their instructions from the CIA. Now Hamas has the records of that collaboration in the documents seized in Gaza from the headquarters of the PA intelligence services.
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