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/ 16 April 2008

Cameraman among 20 killed in Gaza clashes

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.

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/ 11 April 2008

Israel sends tanks, bulldozers into Gaza

Israeli tanks and bulldozers crossed into the Gaza Strip on Friday after the Jewish state warned it would retaliate against Hamas for a deadly explosion of violence earlier this week. Ten tanks and two armoured bulldozers entered 1km into Gaza, west of the Bureij refugee camp, drawing heavy fire from militants.

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/ 7 March 2008

Hamas claims Jerusalem school attack

The Islamist Hamas movement on Friday claimed responsibility for a gun attack that killed eight Jewish teenagers at a Jerusalem religious school on Thursday night. ”Hamas is responsible for the attack. The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades will officially claim the attack at the right moment,” a senior Hamas official in Gaza said on condition of anonymity.

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/ 7 February 2008

Hamas rejects Abbas truce offer

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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/ 21 January 2008

Gaza endures fourth day of Israeli blockade

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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/ 21 December 2007

Sick Gazans cry out for treatment on Israel’s doorstep

Mustafa Hillu writhes underneath blankets, the pain pulsing outward from the cancer in his right leg, and he cries out for someone to persuade Israel to let him in for treatment. If the 36-year-old father of five is not granted entry soon doctors will have to amputate his leg at the groin to prevent the cancer in his femur from spreading, according to his family and an Israeli rights group.

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/ 26 October 2007

Israeli troops raid Gaza, kill six militants

Israeli troops killed six Palestinian gunmen on Friday in some of the heaviest fighting for weeks in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical and militant sources said. Two Israeli troops were wounded, the army said, as three separate raids were mounted into the territory, backed by air strikes. Seven Palestinian militants and three civilians were wounded, hospital staff said.

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/ 7 September 2007

Hamas forces clash with Gaza protesters

Hamas security officers beat protesters, hurled stun grenades and fired in the air to disperse open-air prayers the rival Fatah faction held in the Gaza Strip on Friday in defiance of the territory’s Islamist rulers. Palestinian medical officials said at least 20 people, some with gunshot wounds, were taken to hospital for treatment.

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/ 27 June 2007

Israeli raid into Gaza kills Palestinians

Israeli forces killed at least 11 Palestinians, most of them gunmen, on Wednesday in their biggest raid in the Gaza Strip since Hamas Islamists took over the territory two weeks ago, medical workers and residents said. The operation in Gaza City and the southern town of Khan Younis appeared to signal that Israel intended to keep strong military pressure on Hamas.

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/ 25 June 2007

Hamas releases tape of captured Israeli soldier

An Israeli soldier captured a year ago by militants from Gaza asked for medical treatment and urged Israel to release Palestinian prisoners, in an audio tape posted on the internet on Monday. Except for a handwritten letter to his parents in September, there had been no sign of life from Gilad Shalit since he was spirited into the Gaza Strip on June 25 2006.

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/ 25 June 2007

BBC journalist in bomb-threat video

Kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston has appeared in a frightening new video, saying he is wearing a bomb belt that his Gaza captors will detonate if there is any attempt to rescue him. ”As you can see I’ve been dressed in what is an explosive belt …,” says Johnston, wearing a number of packages strapped around his chest.

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/ 25 June 2007

Hamas seeks talks with Fatah

A senior Hamas leader in Gaza said this week that the movement wants to hold talks with the rival Fatah faction to heal the widening divisions between the Palestinian territories. ”We think that negotiations with Fatah are the only way out,” said Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesperson and prominent figure in the Hamas movement.

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/ 20 June 2007

Israel launches air strikes in Gaza

Israel on Wednesday launched its first major attacks in the Gaza Strip since Hamas took over the territory, killing at least four Palestinian fighters. Israel carried out air strikes against rocket launch sites in northern Gaza after militants fired at least one makeshift rocket into southern Israel. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for firing the rocket.

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/ 19 June 2007

Israeli tanks rumble into Gaza

Israeli tanks crossed into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday near a key crossing point where about 150 Palestinians have been trapped while trying to flee from the territory since Hamas Islamists took it over. An Israeli army spokesperson said the tanks entered Gaza to protect the Erez crossing.

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/ 14 June 2007

Hamas poised to seize full control of Gaza

Hamas was poised to seize full control of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, overrunning key security strongholds of the rival Fatah movement after days of ferocious gun battles in the chaotic territory. The Palestine Liberation Organisation called on president Mahmoud Abbas to sack the teetering coalition government and declare a state of emergency.

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/ 13 June 2007

Hamas on offensive as Palestinians battle in Gaza

Hamas Islamist gunmen pressed on with their Gaza offensive on Wednesday, killing at least eight fighters loyal to Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas in a Palestinian power struggle bordering on civil war. Chanting ”stop the killing”, about 1 000 Palestinians marched through Gaza City — only to draw gunfire in the air from Hamas militants.

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/ 11 June 2007

Gaza truce shaken by attack on PM’s office

Gunmen fired on the offices of the Palestinian prime minister in the Gaza Strip on Monday, disrupting a Cabinet meeting just hours after Egyptian officials helped mediate a truce between rival factions. ”We are taking fire,” an aide to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of the Hamas Islamist movement said from the building where the meeting was suspended.

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/ 25 May 2007

Israeli air strike near Palestinian PM’s home

Israel carried out an air strike near the Gaza residence of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Friday, but insisted he was not the target. ”Haniyeh’s home definitely was not the target,” an Israeli army spokesperson said. Ahmed Youssef, Haniyeh’s political adviser, said the bombardment was meant to send ”a message of threats” to the prime minister.

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/ 20 May 2007

Israel continues air strikes against Hamas

Israel killed three suspected Hamas militants in one of four pre-dawn air strikes in Gaza on Sunday as it built up pressure on the Islamist militant group to stop the firing of makeshift rockets into the Jewish state. An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed a strike had taken place on a vehicle belonging to Hamas militants.

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/ 19 May 2007

Israel hits Hamas targets in Gaza

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.

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/ 17 May 2007

Fragile truce takes hold in Gaza

A tentative truce appeared to take hold in Gaza on Thursday after days of fierce fighting between rival factions that has killed dozens and sent the Palestinian unity Cabinet to the brink of collapse. Israel vowed it would hit militants firing rockets from Gaza, after becoming drawn into the fray by launching air strikes that left four gunmen dead on Wednesday.

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/ 16 May 2007

New Gaza truce fails as fighting escalates

Hamas gunmen raided the home of a top Fatah security official on Wednesday, killing five of his bodyguards, a spokesperson said, as violence spiralled in Gaza despite a new Palestinian truce deal. The attack on the house of Rashid Abu Shbak in Gaza City came hours after the rival factions announced they had agreed another truce.

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/ 15 May 2007

Factional fighting rages in Gaza

Factional feuding raged on in the Gaza Strip on Monday with nine Palestinians killed in the deadliest three days of violence in months, posing a serious challenge to the unity government. Isolated pockets of shooting were reported across the densely populated and dangerous Palestinian territory.