Former United States president Jimmy Carter met Gaza-based leaders of Islamist Hamas in Cairo on Thursday, defying US and Israeli criticism that saw him barred from visiting the Palestinian territory. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Carter is considered to be the architect of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
An Egyptian military court notorious for its harsh verdicts convicted on Tuesday 25 key members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and sentenced them to up to 10 years in jail, a security official said. The charges against members of Egypt’s largest opposition group included money laundering and terrorism.
United States Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spent a fourth day on Monday defending himself for calling people in small towns with economic blight ”bitter” in a controversy that rival Hillary Clinton is trying to use for a comeback. Republican John McCain also sought political gain from the flap.
Hamas is holding back the distribution of one million litres of fuel in the Gaza Strip, a United Nations official said on Monday, joining Israeli claims that the Islamists were stage-managing a crisis. However, the official, who requested anonymity, added that the current quantities of fuel and industrial gasoline stored in Gaza are sufficient for only several days.
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.
Israel warned on Thursday it will retaliate against Hamas, blaming the Palestinian Islamist group for a deadly explosion of violence in the Gaza Strip that followed a month of relative calm. Israeli authorities said they temporarily shut down the Nahal Oz fuel terminal following Wednesday’s attack.
Israel has turned away more sick Palestinians from Gaza seeking treatment since Hamas seized control of the enclave and several have died each month unnecessarily. The World Health Organisation said Israel denied entry permits to 18,5% of patients seeking to leave the Gaza Strip in 2007 versus 10% in 2006.
The highest and oldest wall is that which separates ”us” from ”them”. This is described today as a great divide of religions or ”a clash of civilisations”, which are false concepts, propagated to provide ”the other” — a target for fear and hatred that justifies invasion and plunder, writes John Pilger.
Hamas set out its conditions on Wednesday for a ceasefire with Israel, calling for an end to all acts of Israeli ”aggression” in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and the reopening of Gaza border crossings. Hamas is demanding a say in the future functioning of the crossings, a condition rejected by Israel.
The United States is not satisfied with the pace at which Israel is moving to implement a long-stalled peace ”road map”, US and Western officials said ahead of a key meeting to assess compliance with the plan. Officials said Washington also believed the Palestinians needed to do far more to meet their obligations to boost security.
Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have been holding off from violence that could jeopardise Egyptian efforts to mediate a ceasefire, officials from both sides said on Monday. A truce deal may be key to United States-brokered peace efforts and also benefit Hamas Islamists.
Israeli officials said on Friday they would continue to meet Palestinian leaders under the recently revived peace process, but after escalating violence in Gaza and Jerusalem there was a recognition on both sides that the negotiations are faltering. Mark Regev, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Israel was still committed to the peace process.
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.
Atrocities in the Middle East are often carefully planned and the Palestinian gunman who killed eight Israelis in Jerusalem on Thursday night may have been carrying out a dual act of revenge for the recent onslaught in the Gaza Strip and the assassination of a Hezbollah commander in Damascus.
The United States accused Libya on Thursday of preventing the Security Council from condemning as a ”terrorist attack” a deadly assault on a Jewish school in Jerusalem. The US delegation had hoped the council would unanimously support the text but Libya, backed by several other council members, prevented its adoption.
A Palestinian gunman opened fire in a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem on Thursday, killing at least eight people and wounding about 10 in the most lethal attack in Israel in two years, emergency services said. ”It was a slaughterhouse,” said Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, head of the Zaka emergency service.
British humanitarian agencies on Thursday said the situation in the Gaza Strip was the worst in 40 years and urged the European Union to hold talks with Hamas. ”The situation for 1,5-million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than at any time since the beginning of the Israeli military occupation in 1967,” the eight NGOs said in a joint report.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday Israel and the Palestinians had agreed to resume peace talks suspended over an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. Signalling a willingness by Israel to hold fire, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there would not be further attacks on Gaza if Palestinian militants stop rocket salvoes.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Wednesday to keep up military strikes on the Gaza Strip as long as rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled territory continues. ”The Israeli army operations against the Gaza Strip will continue as long as the rocket fire continues,” a senior official quoted the premier as saying.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrapped up a Middle East trip on Wednesday after failing to secure a resumption of peace talks as Palestinians insisted on a truce and Israel vowed more strikes on Gaza. Rice met senior Palestinian negotiators and Israeli ministers at the end of a visit aimed at mending peace efforts hobbled by Israeli attacks.
The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, on Tuesday called on Israel to stop its ”aggression” to create the right climate for negotiations as the United States sought to salvage a stalled peace effort. Abbas said ”peace and negotiations are our strategic choice” but fell short of announcing a resumption of peace talks.
The Bush administration, caught out by the rise of Hamas, embarked on a secret project for the armed overthrow of the Islamist government in Gaza, it emerged on Monday. Vanity Fair reports in its April edition that President George Bush signed off on a plan for the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, to remove the Hamas authorities in Gaza.
Israeli war planes on Tuesday carried out raids on the north of the Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinians and wounding two others, a Palestinian medical source said. Israel had vowed on Monday to keep hitting Gaza, even as troops pulled out of the Hamas-run territory after clashes that killed more than 120 Palestinians and dealt a blow to peace talks.
Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday after a United States appeal to end days of fighting that killed more than 100 Palestinians, and rescue peace talks. The Hamas Islamists who control the coastal enclave declared ”victory” and vowed to continue firing rockets into Israel.
Israel was facing widespread international condemnation on Sunday for its onslaught in Gaza, as the United Nations and European Union demanded an end to a ”disproportionate” response to Palestinian rocket attacks, which were also denounced.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Israel for using ”excessive” force in the Gaza Strip and demanded a halt to its offensive after troops killed 61 people on the bloodiest day for Palestinians since the 1980s. The 1,5-million Palestinians crammed into the blockaded, 45km sliver of coast, enjoyed a relative respite early on Sunday from Israeli air strikes and raids.
Israel killed 52 Palestinians on Saturday in its deadliest and deepest incursion into the Gaza Strip since pulling out in 2005, stoking fears of a broader conflict that could derail renewed United States-backed peace talks. At least 29 of the dead were civilians, among them women and children, said Palestinian doctors who were working round the clock.
Israeli forces killed 22 Palestinians in the Hamas-led Gaza Strip on Saturday in the most intense fighting in weeks and Israel threatened a broader offensive to stop rocket fire. A total of 57 Palestinians have been killed in four days of Israeli raids and air strikes in the Gaza Strip that the Jewish state launched after cross-border rockets killed an Israeli man on Wednesday.
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/ 29 February 2008
Deputy Israeli Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said on Friday the Palestinians would bring on themselves what he called a ”bigger holocaust” by stepping up rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip. ”Holocaust” is a term rarely used in Israel outside discussions of the Nazi genocide during World War II.
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/ 28 February 2008
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Thursday to make Hamas militants pay a heavy price for rocket attacks despite United States concerns about civilians in the Gaza Strip. As five more Palestinians were killed, Olmert held talks in Tokyo with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
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/ 25 February 2008
Palestinians protesting against an Israeli-led blockade formed a human chain on Monday along roads in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and Israel threatened to use force if they tried to surge into its territory. Hundreds of women and children turned out for the start of what organisers said they hoped would be a peaceful protest.
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/ 12 February 2008
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday he was convinced that Iran was leading a secret operation to build nuclear weapons and urged a greater international effort to prevent Tehran from succeeding. ”We are certain that the Iranians are engaged in a serious … clandestine operation to build up a non-conventional capacity,” Olmert said.