Israel launched more air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza on Saturday, killing at least one person, as top officials considered a broader strategy for stopping rockets being fired at Israeli towns. The Israeli army said an air strike hit three militants firing rockets from northern Gaza.
Israel struck at Hamas targets in Gaza on Friday and threatened a more vigorous response to stop rocket attacks while Palestinian rival factions fought each other in turmoil verging on civil war. Truces agreed by Islamist Hamas and the more secular Fatah over the past week have collapsed swiftly.
Israel launched a second air strike on Hamas militants in Gaza on Friday and the Islamist group’s fighters again clashed with Palestinian rivals on the streets. A Palestinian hospital official said at least one man was killed and others were wounded when Israeli helicopter gunships fired on them.
An Israeli air strike destroyed a Hamas security headquarters in Gaza City on Thursday, wounding at least 40 people, in a powerful response to rocket attacks by Palestinian militants. Smoke rose from what remained of the downtown office building that housed Hamas’s Executive Force.
A little-known Islamist group claimed responsibility in an audio recording on Wednesday for abducting the BBC’s Gaza correspondent, issuing demands immediately rebuffed by the Palestinian government. As evidence that it is holding BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, the group posted on the internet a photo of his BBC identification card.
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/ 30 January 2007
Gunmen shot dead a Hamas commander in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and the Islamist group blamed a Fatah-dominated security service for the first killing in the territory since a ceasefire went into effect overnight. Hospital officials in the southern town of Khan Younis said Hussein Shabasi was shot in the head.
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/ 26 January 2007
Rival Palestinian factions clashed across the Gaza Strip, killing six people, as thousands of Hamas supporters marched on Friday to mark the Islamist group’s election victory over Fatah opponents last year. The escalating violence forced the postponement of talks to form a coalition government.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Friday he and President Mahmoud Abbas had agreed to keep gunmen from their rival Hamas and Fatah factions off Gaza’s streets after clashes in which eight were killed. Factional fighting has surged in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since Abbas challenged the ruling Hamas faction by calling for early elections.
Palestinian gunmen kidnapped a Peruvian photographer working for Agence France-Presse in Gaza on Monday, while several militants were seized in separate abductions that sparked new violence between rival factions. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction of the photographer, named by the French news agency and Palestinian security sources as Jaime Razuri.
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/ 19 December 2006
Gun battles raged between Hamas loyalists and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s forces in Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least three people and reviving fears the strip could slip into civil war. Internal Palestinian fighting — the worst in a decade — has escalated since Abbas called on Saturday for early elections in an attempt to break a political deadlock.