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/ 11 February 2008
Israel threatened to topple the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers on Monday following a surge of cross-border rocket attacks by the Palestinian Islamist group. ”I believe a combination of steps against Hamas in Gaza will bring an end to the Hamas regime in Gaza,” Israel’s Vice-Premier, Haim Ramon, told reporters. ”They will not last. It will take a few months.”
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/ 7 February 2008
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas offered to help negotiate a ceasefire as Israel pounded Gaza on Thursday, killing seven people days after a suicide bombing claimed by Hamas rulers. Hamas promptly rejected the offer, with spokesperson Fawzi Barhum branding it a ”blackmail attempt against the Palestinian people”.
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/ 24 January 2008
Gazans poured into Egypt for a second consecutive day on Thursday to stock up on supplies after militants blew open the border barrier of the Hamas-run territory, witnesses said. Hundreds of people continued to cross the border, most of them intent on buying goods on the Egyptian side a week after Israel imposed a blockade on territory.
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/ 21 January 2008
Gaza endured a fourth day of hardship on Monday as Israel vowed to maintain a punishing blockade in response to rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory, despite increasing international concern over a developing humanitarian crisis. The European Union slammed what it termed the ”collective punishment” of impoverished Gaza’s 1,5-million residents.
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/ 19 January 2008
Moin al-Wadia lay on his hospital bed beneath a window on Friday, soaking up the last of the day’s winter sunshine. Around him sat his family, with boxes of sweet pastries and bouquets of flowers, as they tried to explain the growing anger and frustration of the people of Gaza.
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/ 18 January 2008
Israel closed border crossings with the Gaza Strip and destroyed the Hamas-run Interior Ministry on Friday in what witnesses said was an air strike, stepping up what it says is a campaign to halt Palestinian rocket attacks. One woman was killed and at least 30 others nearby were wounded in a large explosion, medical officials said.
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/ 14 December 2007
Israel must ease restrictions on the Palestinians if efforts led by Tony Blair to boost the Palestinian economy are to be successful, the World Bank and Oxfam said on Thursday. Next Monday Blair, representing the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers, is to chair a conference in Paris of 90 countries and organisations.
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/ 8 December 2007
Senior Israeli officials warned on Friday that they were still considering a military strike against Iran, despite a fresh United States intelligence report that concluded Tehran was no longer developing nuclear weapons. Although Israel says it wants strong diplomatic pressure put on Iran, it is reluctant to rule out the threat of a unilateral attack.
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/ 4 December 2007
Israel said on Tuesday it believed that Iran had restarted its atomic-weapons programme and that a United States-backed campaign to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions must continue despite a US report it had halted the work. ”It is vital to pursue efforts to prevent Iran from developing a capability like this,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters.
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/ 29 November 2007
Israeli police said on Thursday there was insufficient evidence to indict Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a graft case, a major boost for the premier as he returned home from a United Sates peace conference. ”There is insufficient evidence to indict Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the Bank Leumi case,” police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said.
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/ 25 November 2007
Hamas officials have issued stark warnings that the Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Annapolis this week is likely to result in more violence rather than settlement, including a threat from the group to escalate its own ”resistance” to Israeli occupation.
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/ 20 November 2007
A meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders has failed to produce a joint declaration for a Middle East summit due next week in the United States, after they could not resolve key differences. The declaration that diplomats originally expected Israel and the Palestinians to agree on has yet to be agreed.
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/ 15 November 2007
Israel is quietly preparing for the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran despite public pledges to deny its arch-foe the means to pose an ”existential threat”, Israeli political and defence sources said on Thursday. Israel predicts that Iran’s nuclear programme could produce warheads by 2009.
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/ 25 October 2007
Israeli officials prepared a plan on Wednesday to cut power supplies to the Gaza Strip amid violence that killed two Palestinian boys after a rocket salvo damaged an apartment building in the Jewish state. The United Nations has told Israel it must not inflict collective punishment by cutting vital supplies and services.
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/ 28 September 2007
An Israeli missile strike killed a Palestinian militant in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medical workers and witnesses said, a day after 11 Palestinians were killed during an Israeli raid into the coastal territory. Residents said the missile attack killed one gunman and wounded two others from the Islamic Jihad militant group.
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/ 11 September 2007
A rocket fired by Gaza militants smashed into an Israeli army base early Tuesday, wounding dozens of sleeping conscripts and heightening pressure on the government to hit the Hamas-ruled territory. At least 69 soldiers sleeping in tents were wounded when the homemade rocket crashed into the Zikim base.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was on Wednesday preparing to send a team of negotiators to Washington to meet a Palestinian delegation.