A senior Egyptian mediator will on Monday present to the Israeli government a new ceasefire proposal agreed with the Hamas Islamist movement that could halt the conflict in Gaza and begin to resolve the mounting economic crisis that has engulfed the strip.
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.
Israeli authorities have decided to distribute gas masks to civilians, starting next year, to prepare for a possible non-conventional weapons’ attack, public radio reported. It said Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai announced the decision during a closed-door meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and members of his security Cabinet.
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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/ 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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/ 25 January 2008
Egypt began closing its breached border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Friday, using barbed wire and water cannons to keep Palestinians from crossing into Egypt in defiance of an Israeli blockade. Israeli air strikes overnight killed four Palestinian militants in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, where Hamas blasted open the border wall on Wednesday.
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/ 24 January 2008
Israel wants to cut its links with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip after militants blasted open the territory’s border with Egypt in defiance of an Israeli blockade. Israel, which occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, pulled troops and settlers out in 2005 but still controls its northern and eastern borders.
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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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/ 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.