Gaza City

The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, says Israel’s plan to impose its final borders deep inside the occupied territories while expropriating large areas of Palestinian land for Jewish settlers will lead to another war in a decade. Speaking in Gaza City, Abbas said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would jeopardise the possibility of long-term peace if he refused to negotiate an agreement that ordinary Palestinians considered just.

Israeli aircraft on Tuesday fired three missiles into the presidential compound of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, wounding two people and leaving deep craters in the ground. The Israeli air strike came in response to homemade Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel, though it was not immediately clear why Abbas’s compound was targeted.

A Hamas spokesperson said on Thursday that the militant group, which is to take over the Palestinian government this month, has been invited to South Africa for talks with officials. No timetable has been set for the visit, spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said.

The leader of the armed wing of the radical Islamic Jihad faction was killed on Wednesday in an Israeli air strike on a car in Gaza City, Palestinian medical sources said. Khaled al-Dahduh, the leader of the al-Quds Brigades in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, was killed when the vehicle in which he was travelling exploded.

With horns blaring, hundreds of Hamas supporters on Thursday took to the streets in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza to celebrate their party’s election victory. Truckloads of supporters waving the party’s green flags drove through the Islamist stronghold with some militants firing in the air in celebration.

The Middle East will be ”a better place” without ailing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas said on Thursday. ”The world is on the verge of being rid of one of its worst leaders,” chief Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri told Agence France Presse.

Israeli air raids struck buildings and roads in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with the army poised to implement a security zone in the Palestinian territory intended to thwart militant rocket attacks. Army helicopters fired missiles, heavily damaging offices connected to the ruling Fatah movement and roads in the northern part of the territory.

Calm returned to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after deadly internecine clashes and police protests over dire insecurity problems, as Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian mother of five in the West Bank. ”Things are calm and we hope that everyone will respect the law and public order,” said interior ministry spokesperson Tawfiq Abu Khossa.

Israeli aircraft blasted suspected Palestinian weapons facilities and other militant targets throughout the Gaza Strip on Sunday, at the launch of what the military said would be a ”prolonged” offensive against Hamas militants for bombarding
Israeli towns with rockets. A group of senior Israeli Cabinet officials, led by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, approved the military operation in Gaza at an emergency meeting late on Saturday after Hamas militants fired nearly 40 rockets from Gaza at southern Israeli towns.

The Gaza Strip’s dangerously low drinking water reserves, dilapidated decontamination facilities and a nearly dry water table are warning signals of a looming crisis, Palestinian experts say. ”We are heading toward an ecological catastrophe,” said Shaddad al-Atili, water and ecological affairs advisor to the Palestinian Authority, citing Gaza’s rapidly growing population.

Hamas will not surrender its weapons to the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip after Israel’s pull-out from the territory, one of the Islamist movement’s top leaders said on Friday. ”This army will continue to defend our homeland as long as one inch of Palestine remains occupied,” Mahmud Zahar told reporters.

A Palestinian executed late on Wednesday in Gaza City confessed from the gallows to another, previously unsolved homicide. A statement from the Palestinian Authority Interior Ministry said that the execution was carried out against Ra’zed al-Mughrabi, a resident of Jabalia refugee camp, ”for committing a homicide one year ago”.

Israel on Wednesday launched its first air strike against Palestinian militants since armed groups began observing a de facto truce, seriously wounding a Hamas militant and jeopardising the fragile peace. Amid the violence, the Israeli authorities sought to speed up preparations for the Gaza evacuation.

United States Secretary of State Colin Powell is expected to hold talks with the new Palestinian leadership on a visit to the West Bank next week, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said on Monday. Powell will hold talks with new Palestine Liberation Organisation chairperson Mahmud Abbas and Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.

An agreement on funeral arrangements to be made in the aftermath of Yasser Arafat’s death was reached on Tuesday by Israeli and Palestinian officials, a senior Palestinian official said on condition of anonymity. ”Senior Palestinian and Israeli officials have reached an agreement in principle on the arrangements to be made after the death of president Arafat,” the official told AFP.

An Israeli aircraft fired a missile on Sunday at a Palestinian house in a Hamas stronghold in Gaza’s Jebaliya refugee camp, killing at least one person, witnesses and rescue workers said. One 28-year-old Palestinian civilian was killed, hospital officials said. Three others, including a girl, were wounded.

A Palestinian minister lashed out at the international community on Sunday for staying silent over Israel’s deadly incursion into the Gaza Strip, saying it was only encouraging a continuation of the vast operation. Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erakat was speaking shortly before an emergency session of the Palestinian Parliament to discuss the situation in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military stepped up its campaign to put an end to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip by sending reinforcements to the north of the territory and carrying out an air strike in the area on Wednesday. Three Palestinians were wounded in the Israeli helicopter strike near Jabaliya refugee camp, medical and security sources said.

An explosion on Tuesday in a Gaza Strip area where the Israeli army is operating killed at least three people and wounded 10 others, Palestinian witnesses said. They said the explosion went off as Palestinian residents gathered to inspect the damage caused overnight by the army. One person was decapitated by the blast.

A large explosion was heard along the Gaza-Egypt border on Sunday as an Israeli military convoy passed through, Palestinian witnesses said. President Moshe Katsav said on Sunday that most Israelis favour a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, a day after 150 000 protesters rallied to demand a pullout from the territory.

Four Palestinians were killed on Wednesday during an Israeli army operation in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Zeitun to recover the remains of six soldiers killed a day earlier during a raid, Palestinian medical sources said. Three Palestinians were killed and 10 wounded earlier in an Israeli helicopter raid on a house in Zeitun.

Another Palestinian was killed by Israeli troops in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Zeitun, Palestinian medical sources said, raising to seven the number of Palestinians killed there on Tuesday. Also, a 12-year-old Palestinian was killed on Tuesday when an Israeli helicopter fired a missile near a market in Gaza City.

Three members of the hardline Palestinian movement Hamas were killed on Wednesday in an Israeli helicopter strike on a car near Gaza City. The Israeli military’s Chief of Staff, Moshe Yaalon, announced on Tuesday that the army would intensify its operations against militant groups in the Palestinian territories.

A top Islamic Jihad political leader vowed on Thursday that Israel would face ”severe” reprisals after its army killed 15 people in the Gaza Strip, most in a vicious gun battle. Jihad’s bigger rival, Hamas, has also called on its armed wing to launch large-scale suicide attacks against Israel.

Nine Palestinians were killed early on Wednesday during a firefight with Israeli soldiers in eastern Gaza City. A total of 30 people had also been wounded after soldiers opened fire on a Palestinian security post in the al-Shijaiyeh area near the town centre.