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/ 22 November 2007
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was hosting a summit with the Palestinian and Jordanian leaders on Thursday as Arab foreign ministers mull whether to join a United States-sponsored peace conference next week. Mubarak met Jordan’s King Abdullah II in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to discuss preparations for the conference.
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/ 21 November 2007
Condoleezza Rice taught crisis management at Stanford University but experts say the top United States diplomat will need more than academic prowess to mediate an end to six decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ”The question is, will she have that diplomatic skill to pull it off?” asked Daniel Levy, a former Israeli mediator.
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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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/ 19 November 2007
The Israeli Cabinet on Monday approved the release of nearly 450 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to president Mahmoud Abbas ahead of a United States-sponsored peace meet, a senior official said. "The government approved the proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to release up to 500 Palestinian prisoners," the official said on condition of anonymity.
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/ 13 November 2007
Hamas has rounded up scores of Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip following a rally that drew more than 200 000 supporters and ended in gunfire that killed seven people. The assembly on Monday, marking the third anniversary of the death of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, was the biggest held by President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah group in Gaza.
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/ 12 November 2007
Gunfire killed at least six people and wounded 80 on Monday at a Fatah memorial rally for Yasser Arafat attended by hundreds of thousands of supporters of the defeated faction in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The rare Fatah rally broke up in chaos after gunfire rang out.
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/ 2 November 2007
Saudi Arabia has signalled that it will not attend the Middle East peace conference scheduled by the United States for this month unless there is significant agreement in advance on the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians. Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Foreign Minister, also held out a vision of normalisation between the Arab world and Israel.
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/ 1 November 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets Israeli and Palestinian leaders this weekend to craft a joint document ahead of a peace conference but she has intentionally set expectations low. US officials expect Rice’s visit will result in a document filled with principles to kick off negotiations on a Palestinian state.
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/ 30 October 2007
Israel’s attorney general (AG) told the government on Monday it could not cut electrical power to the Gaza Strip as part of its sanctions against the Hamas controlled territory, although he did approve other measures. Israel began implementing economic sanctions on Sunday in what it said was a response to Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli towns.
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/ 29 October 2007
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced on Monday he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer requiring surgery but vowed to stay in office, confident of a full recovery. ”Following the results of a regular check-up, I was diagnosed with initial signs of prostate cancer,” the 62-year-old prime minister told a packed news conference in Jerusalem.
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/ 26 October 2007
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged on Friday to work towards a meaningful agreement for a United States conference following major disagreement on how to proceed. The two leaders met for two-and-a-half hours with their chief negotiators.
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/ 26 October 2007
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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/ 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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/ 19 October 2007
The battle over the agenda of a conference on Palestinian statehood offers United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a glimpse of the gruelling process that awaits if and when the two sides enter formal negotiations. Four days of shuttle diplomacy by Rice this week were not enough to close the gaps.
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/ 15 October 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice vowed on Monday that a US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian conference would be serious and substantive, confirming it will take place in Annapolis, Maryland. ”We frankly have better things to do than invite people to Annapolis for a photo op,” she said.
Hamas paid Gaza security officials on Friday by dishing out cash from suitcases rather than using banks, as Israel tightened a clampdown on the Palestinian territory. An official said the group planned to circumvent banks by paying salaries to about 20 000 security forces and civil servants in cash.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders held a new round of talks on Wednesday, meeting for the first time with their negotiating teams to try to bridge gaping differences ahead of a United States-sponsored peace summit. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas met one-on-one for the fourth time in less than two months.
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/ 30 September 2007
Egypt abruptly allowed about 100 Palestinians who had been stranded in Egypt since Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in mid-June to return home before dawn on Sunday, witnesses said. Most were supporters of the Islamic militant Hamas or gunmen from other factions wanted by Israel, they said.
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/ 28 September 2007
Israel and the Palestinians could sign a peace deal within six months of an international peace conference scheduled for November, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday. ”The meeting in November should define the principles settling the questions over the final status [of the Palestinian territories],” Abbas said.
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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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/ 19 September 2007
Israel declared the Gaza Strip an ”enemy entity” on Wednesday and said it would reduce its fuel and power supplies to the Hamas-run territory in response to rocket attacks by Palestinian militants. Hamas described the move as a declaration of war.
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/ 7 September 2007
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.