United States President George Bush offered a peace prophecy for the Middle East on Thursday in which the enemies of the United States faced a future of defeat. ”This is a bold vision, and some will say it can never be achieved,” Bush told Israel’s Parliament.
Israel on Friday dismissed a Hamas proposal for a six-month Gaza Strip truce during which an embargo on the territory would be lifted, saying the Palestinian Islamists wanted to prepare for more fighting rather than peace. The Hamas offer, issued on Thursday following talks with Egyptian mediators, departed from previous demands by the group.
Hamas plans to give Egyptian mediators its final response on Thursday to a proposed truce with Israel, a Hamas official said on Tuesday. Egypt’s state newspaper, al-Ahram, reported a preliminary agreement had been reached on ”achieving a period of calm with the Israelis”.
Former United States president Jimmy Carter said on Monday Hamas leaders told him they would accept a peace agreement negotiated by their rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, if Palestinians approved the deal in a vote. In a speech, Carter said Hamas ”said they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders if approved by Palestinians.”
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.
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.
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.
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/ 11 February 2008
Israel threatened to topple the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers on Monday following a surge of cross-border rocket attacks by the Palestinian Islamist group. ”I believe a combination of steps against Hamas in Gaza will bring an end to the Hamas regime in Gaza,” Israel’s Vice-Premier, Haim Ramon, told reporters. ”They will not last. It will take a few months.”
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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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/ 23 January 2008
Palestinian militants blew up part of the wall between Gaza and Egypt on Wednesday, and tens of thousands of Palestinians poured into Egypt to stock up on food and fuel in short supply due to an Israeli blockade. Egyptian riot police sent to reinforce the border mainly stood aside and let the Palestinians through.
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/ 25 November 2007
Hamas officials have issued stark warnings that the Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Annapolis this week is likely to result in more violence rather than settlement, including a threat from the group to escalate its own ”resistance” to Israeli occupation.
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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.
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/ 11 September 2007
A rocket fired by Gaza militants smashed into an Israeli army base early Tuesday, wounding dozens of sleeping conscripts and heightening pressure on the government to hit the Hamas-ruled territory. At least 69 soldiers sleeping in tents were wounded when the homemade rocket crashed into the Zikim base.