Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad on Tuesday unveiled his government’s plans to create a de facto state in two years.
Rival Palestinian factions have so far failed to overcome obstacles in reconciliation talks which they hope will lead to a unified governing body.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday pressed Israel to ease travel restrictions on Palestinians and called Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank ”particularly problematic”. But she said Washington believed an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal was still possible before US President George Bush leaves office in January.
Israeli soldiers on Thursday dispersed about 50 Palestinian and Israeli demonstrators who briefly took control of a wildcat settlement near Ramallah to protest against the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The protesters had raised a Palestinian flag in place of an Israeli one.
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/ 10 January 2008
United States President George Bush on Thursday predicted the signing of a Middle East peace treaty in a year and called for an end to Israel’s four-decade occupation of Palestinian land. Giving an assessment of his talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders over the past two days, he said it was time for both to make ”difficult choices”.
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/ 3 December 2007
More than 400 Palestinian prisoners came home to a heroes’ welcome on Monday after the latest Israeli release aimed at boosting President Mahmoud Abbas during the revived peace process. Thousands of singing and dancing well-wishers waving Palestinian flags gathered to greet the buses filled with the smiling ex-detainees.
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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.
Tony Blair said on Tuesday there was a new ”moment of opportunity” in the Middle East but cautioned in his first visit as an international envoy against expecting any peace breakthrough soon. Blair, in his first public remarks since starting his mission on Monday, said he came ”to listen and to learn and to reflect” in talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Thousands of Palestinian civil servants began receiving their first full salaries in 17 months on Wednesday after Israel released tens of millions of dollars of withheld tax receipts. Relieved Palestinians queued en masse outside banks, checking their names on a list or drawing cash from ATM machines.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was set to swear in a new Cabinet in the West Bank on Sunday, further sealing the divide sparked by the bloody seizure of the Gaza Strip by his Islamist rivals. Palestinian officials hope the creation of an emergency Cabinet without Hamas will lead to the lifting of a crippling Western aid boycott.
Hamas may now rule Gaza, but for many ordinary Palestinians the bloody conclusion of this week’s factional fighting promises only more chaos. Emergency measures imposed by President Mahmoud Abbas in an 11th-hour bid to bolster his secular Fatah against Hamas Islamists provided little consolation to Palestinians.
Marking 40 years of Israeli occupation, President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday internal fighting had brought Palestinians to the brink of civil war. Yet Abbas, recalling what he described as the Arabs’ ”great defeat” by Israel in six days of war that began on June 5 1967, assured his people that statehood was within reach.
Palestinians are crying out for order and progress towards statehood, yet their Parliament has failed to pass a single law in over a year, paralysed by factional fighting and, some say, Israeli tactics. In the 15 months since voters rallied behind the Hamas Islamist group, the 11-year-old Palestinian Legislative Council has rarely managed to gather the 67 members, a simple majority, to form a quorum for decisions.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal warned Israel could face another Palestinian uprising unless conditions in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank improve. Meshaal told the Palestinian daily al-Ayyam on Monday that continuation of a Western economic embargo of the Palestinian government and military actions by Israel would ”give notice to a huge explosion”.
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/ 10 October 2006
When hundreds of Fatah gunmen paraded past his West Bank supermarket last week, Mohammad Zahi stared unbelieving at their sparkling black M16 assault rifles. In years past, gunmen in similar military displays waved ageing Kalashnikovs, the cheaper and cruder Soviet-designed rifle common in the Palestinian territories and much of the Arab world.
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/ 25 September 2006
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday put off talks with Hamas aimed at breaking a stalemate over forming a unity government, in a sign of deep internal divisions. Abbas’s aides had said the president was expected to travel to Gaza on Tuesday for talks with leaders of the ruling Hamas Islamist movement, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
Israel seized Hamas leaders and stepped up its Gaza assault on Thursday, intensifying the pressure on Palestinians over the capture of a soldier that threatens to spiral into regional conflict. The body of a Jewish settler abducted by militants was also found dumped in the West Bank, adding to the tensions in the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Palestinian foreign minister returned to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday from a trip abroad with an estimated -million packed in 12 separate suitcases, according to officials. Mahmoud Zahar, a member of Hamas, declared the amount he was carrying to Egyptian officials at the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced a referendum fiercely opposed by the Hamas government on Saturday as the Islamists ended an 18-month truce with a barrage of rockets at Israel. The first-ever Palestinian referendum will take place on July 26, according to the decree signed by Abbas and read out to reporters.
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was headed for a showdown with the Hamas government after winning the green light on Tuesday to hold a referendum on implicitly recognising Israel. The decision by the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation to endorse his referendum plan came despite opposition from Hamas.
A deadline imposed by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for Hamas to soften its policies to end an acute crisis ticked to a close on Monday as at least five people were killed in fighting in Gaza. Meetings were planned throughout the day and evening in the West Bank town of Ramallah, where the moderate Palestinian Authority president is based.
A new round of talks on Monday, hosted by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, which are designed to ease tensions between rival factions, made significant progress. Aziz Dweik, the Hamas speaker of the Ramallah-based Parliament, told reporters that he believed agreement on a common approach was within reach.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas gave Fatah and Hamas a deadline on Thursday to end their deadly rivalry or else he would call a referendum, which could lead to a new national-unity government. Abbas’s shock announcement came on the first day of cross-party talks aimed at drawing a line under divisions between his Fatah movement and the Islamists of Hamas.
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/ 27 January 2006
Hamas was under mounting pressure to renounce violence on Friday after its shock election win as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said he would ask the radical Islamist movement Hamas to form a new government. The sensational victory has thrown prospects for Middle East peacemaking into turmoil and triggered alarm in Israel and across the world.
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/ 26 January 2006
The result in a knife-edge Palestinian election is expected to be announced on Thursday amid forecasts that the Islamists of Hamas have deprived the ruling Fatah faction of its majority. Exit polls released late on Wednesday showed Hamas would make a dramatic entry into Parliament, if falling just short of usurping Fatah.
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/ 25 January 2006
Palestinians turned out in force for their second-ever general election on Wednesday, with Fatah facing an unprecedented challenge to its long grip on power from Hamas. With security tight, a steady stream of voters cast their ballots throughout the day in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Palestinian Premier Ahmed Qureia lent his voice on Tuesday to a growing chorus insisting that the January 25 parliamentary elections be postponed unless Israel allows Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to vote in the municipality boundaries. ”There will be no elections without Jerusalem,” Qureia said.
It was on the third day of captivity that Kate Burton decided she had had enough. ”I asked them to release us. I told them that it had gone on for long enough,” she said. Ahmed, one of the kidnappers, shouted back: ”I can’t believe what you are doing. You are being so disrespectful after everything we have done for you.”
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/ 14 November 2005
Israel and the Palestinians appeared on Monday on the verge of a crucial deal to open up Gaza’s border with Egypt after a new round of intensive talks with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose visit was shadowed by the killing of a top Islamic militant by Israeli troops.
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/ 14 November 2005
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday that an Israeli-Palestinian deal on reopening the Gaza-Egypt border is imminent, following talks with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. ”We have discussed issues relevant to the Gaza Strip in order to avoid transforming the Gaza Strip into a big prison,” Abbas said.
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/ 26 October 2005
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told Parliament on Wednesday he will not form a new government before January’s legislative elections. Parliament passed a motion on October 3 calling on Abbas to appoint a new government as a result of the current administration’s failure to halt the security chaos in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
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/ 10 October 2005
A summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas looked set to be postponed on Monday amid a dispute over demands for the release of Palestinian prisoners. Top officials from both sides were due to hold another round of talks in a last-ditch effort to save the summit.