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/ 22 January 2009
Senior United Nations officials examined the extent of war damage in Gaza on Thursday.
Israeli warplanes bombed suspected arms-smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza early on Thursday, as diplomats worked to secure a ceasefire.
Israeli troops battled Hamas fighters in major cities of overcrowded Gaza on Tuesday as Israel spurned appeals to halt the offensive.
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/ 30 December 2008
Israel bombed Gaza for a fourth day on Tuesday, warning that the blitz that has killed at least 360 people could last for weeks.
Brent Meersman gets a taste of the East without precaution at Bukara in Cape Town.
Three Israeli soldiers and 17 Palestinians, one a cameraman for an international news agency, were killed on Wednesday as troops backed by helicopters stormed into the Gaza Strip. Fadel Shana (23), a Reuters cameraman, was critically wounded when a missile hit his vehicle in the central Gaza Strip.
A landmark coalition government uniting rival factions took power on Saturday, vowing to end a year-long international boycott that has crippled the economy of the Palestinian territories. The new government unites the secular Fatah party with the Islamist Hamas movement.
Israel struck at the heart of the Palestinian government on Sunday, hitting the Gaza office of the Hamas prime minister in a new wave of night-time air raids, ratcheting up the pressure to rescue an Israeli soldier captured by militants a week ago. Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, who was not in his office at the time, condemned the attack, which set his office ablaze.
Two Hamas militants trying to fire rockets into Israel were killed in air strikes on Sunday, as the ruling Islamists fought Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s referendum on coexistence with Israel. A third Palestinian militant from the Islamic Jihad faction was also killed while preparing a rocket attack.
Hamas ended an 18-month ceasefire on Saturday, firing 11 rockets at Israel just hours before Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was due to announce a controversial referendum. A statement by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said the attacks were in response to the killing of 10 Palestinians.
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas said on Thursday he would bombard Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with demands at a forthcoming Middle East summit as Israel seeks to bolster the Palestinian leader in his efforts to rein in Islamist militants.
Israeli troops moved into northern Gaza on Tuesday in a bid to halt rocket attacks by Palestinian militants but failed to stop a new volley landing in southern Israel, a day after the missiles claimed their first fatalities. Meanwhile, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead by Israeli troops in the southern Gaza Strip.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=117902">Gaza braces for revenge</a>