Boats arrive in Gaza early Saturday evening
Break siege vessels anchor at Gaza port
FREE GAZA BOATS ARRIVE IN GAZA
Haniyeh: Free Gaza ships a siege-breaking success; vessels arrive safely in Gaza
"We've entered Gazan waters!"
We salute you
Live Interview On Democracy Now!
Israeli paper- Palestinians: Leftist boats didn't bring enough food
Patient death toll in Gaza reaches 240
Blocked Gaza aid driver set to head home
Gaza's shocking devastation
MENA: Refused Gaza Fulbright students speak
Abdo to PNN: Israeli forces open fire on Palestinian boats
23.08.08 - 13:08
Fadi Yacoub / PNN – According to the Free Gaza Movement there are now an estimated 200,000 Palestinians on the shores of Gaza waiting to greet the SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty. Their estimated arrival time is now between 5 and 7 pm, as relayed from Jeff Halper on one of the boats.
Rami Abdo, Spokesperson of the People's Committee to Address the Siege on the Gaza Strip told PNN this afternoon that Israeli gunboats opened fire on the Palestinians who had sailed boats into the sea to receive the two “Break the Siege” boats, which had almost reached Palestinian territorial waters. They were forced to change course due to the presence of Israeli warships.
Dozens of small boats are waiting in the waters near the coast along with thousands of Palestinians on the shores of Gaza. They are there to greet the "Break the Siege on Gaza" boats that are expected Saturday. “People came early this morning to applaud the arrival of the foreigners and Palestinians who are on the mission to bring attention to the situation,” Abdo told PNN early this afternoon.
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Analysis by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Aug 22 (IPS) - Recent weeks have seen the worst fighting between rival Palestinian movements Fatah and Hamas since the latter's takeover of the Gaza Strip last summer. Hamas accuses the "treasonous faction" within Fatah -- which worked with U.S. military intelligence in last year's failed bid to destroy the resistance group -- of instigating the violence.
"Hamas's accusations are understandable," Abdelaziz Shadi, political science professor and coordinator of the Israeli studies programme at Cairo University told IPS. "Instability in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip would be in Fatah's interests."
In the 14 months since Hamas seized control of Gaza from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in a pre-emptive coup, after winning elections in 2006, mutual animosity has been largely confined to a war of words. In recent weeks, however, the dispute between the two movements -- which now head rival governments in Gaza and Ramallah -- escalated into open conflict.
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By Kawther Salam • Aug 20th, 2008 at 17:03 • Category: Israel, Palestine, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance
Following the interchanging of the roles of coordination between the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli occupation raided the Palestinian charities of Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin in the West Bank cities, closing, vandalizing, looting, destroying, and transferring their respective properties to the Israeli military central command Gadi Shamni, and the Palestinian Authority lead by the appointed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is lead by the American criminals Lt. Gen. William Fraser and Lt. General Keith Dayton, implemented several raids and attacks on Palestinian charities and orphanage in Hebron and its district Taffouh, Beit Ummar, Beit Ula and other cities.
The continuous illegal raids by the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Authority are coordinated by the US air force criminal Lt. Gen. William Fraser and Lt. General Keith Dayton, the US coordinator for the genocide against Palestinians. Both lead the Palestinian authority security groups according to some of the accords of the Annapolis summit. The accords are based on targeting the Palestinian opposition parties and their charitable organizations, like the orphanages, medical centers, kindergartens, and confiscating and freezing their banks accounts in order to strengthen President Mahmoud Abbas and protecting the Israeli security. The European Union is financing this plan with the funds which they transfer for the PA security system.
According to the agreements which the US Generals Dayton and Fraser are implementing in Palestine, they have to build a Palestinian “complementary military system” which leads the Palestinian security forces to serve the security of Israel. In order to implement this plan, the Israeli military must exchange their role with the Palestinian authority to “develop” the situation. The role of the Israeli military is to arrest the political opponents of the PA and to close their charities.
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Mahmoud-al-ZaharThe Hamas rulers of Gaza Strip on Tuesday lashed out at gunners who fire rockets at Israel from the Palestinian territory in violation of a seven-week-old calm, calling them Israeli collaborators. "About the rocket-firing, I think those who are responsible are those who collaborate with Israel because there is a consensus by all Palestinian groups to respect the truce," said Dr. Mahmud Zahar, a senior leader of the Hamas movement.
On Monday, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in an empty field outside the southern Israeli city of Sderot, causing no casualty or damage.
According to AFP, Zahar told a Gaza radio station that the party which fired the rocket was "linked to Israel as they provide a pretext to exercise pressure on the Palestinian people.
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(VIDEO) 180 Fatah members enter country through Nahal Oz terminal after Hamas asserts control in Gaza City stronghold of clan linked to Abbas' faction following fierce clashes; sources in Strip say former Tanzim leader Ahmad Hilles among those allowed entry. Wounded evacuated to Israeli hospitals
Ali Waked
Latest Update: 08.02.08, 23:04 / Israel News
VIDEO - More than 180 Fatah members who fled Gaza City following Hamas' raid on a stronghold of the Hilles clan were allowed to enter Israel through the Nahal Oz terminal after laying down their arms and undergoing an initial interrogation; 22 of those who have entered Israel were injured during the clashes.
Five of the injured were taken to the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba for treatment. One of the Palestinians was reportedly in serious condition, while the other two sustained moderate and light wounds. Ten more Palestinians were taken to the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon; one of them was listed in serious condition, and the rest suffered moderate and light wounds.
A number of other injured Palestinians were evacuated to Rehovot's Kaplan Medical Center.
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At around 1:30 this afternoon, AP released a report titled “Palestinian infighting in Gaza escalates, 4 killed.”
It concluded thus:
Abbas’ troops put on a show of force in Ramallah, marching in formation through the center.
Amir Qimari, 25, a food company employee, watched the military display with dismay.
“This became an oppressive and non-democratic government,” he said of the Western-backed Abbas and his West Bank prime minister, Salam Fayyad. “What they say Hamas is doing in Gaza, they are doing here.”
Security forces also patrolled the halls of Ramallah’s hospital where some of those injured in the rally that was broken up were being treated. The forces prevented reporters from speaking to the injured.
[http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=278983 (13:37)]
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By Ben Smith and Carrie Budoff Brown
AMMAN, Jordan -- An Obama campaign ban on green clothing during the candidate's visits to Israel and Jordan has created wide puzzlement among observers of the Middle East.
In a memo to reporters, described as "a few guidelines we sent staff before departure to the Middle East," Obama advance staffer Peter Newell laid out rules on attire for Jordan and Israel.
First among them: "Do not wear green."
An Obama aide explained to reporters that green is the color associated with the militant Palestinian group Hamas. But while the color does appear on Hamas banners, there is no particular symbolism to wearing green clothes, experts said.
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07/09/08
Under the pretext of fighting Hamas: Israel launches all-out war on Islamic institutions in the West Bank
From Khalid Amayreh in Nablus
Learning aids trashed at this Nablus
school by IOF soldiers
Palestinian Islamic leaders have called on Arab and Muslim states as well as “all human beings who believe in justice” to strongly condemn an ongoing Israeli campaign against Islamic civilian institutions throughout the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli army on Tuesday, 8 July, rampaged through the northern town of Nablus, raiding schools, businesses, charities, sport clubs and a major medical center.
Eyewitnesses said as many as 130 Israeli military vehicles and armored personnel carriers stormed Nablus’s downtown shortly after forces loyal to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas were ordered by the town’s nominal governor Jamal Muhesen to return to their barracks and stay there until a further notice.
--MORE--The "Shalit affair" is being delayed for cynical ends, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah
Hamas has accused Israel of "dragging its feet" and "showing little seriousness" about negotiating a prospective prisoner swap deal whereby Israel would free hundreds of Palestinian political and resistance prisoners in exchange for Hamas releasing an Israeli occupation army soldier captured by Palestinian fighters near Gaza two years ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would like to speed up the negotiations with Hamas on a swap deal. Olmert was quoted as saying that he instructed all those who are involved in the negotiations with Hamas "to do what is necessary" so that the talks can progress as quickly as possible.
However, the Israeli government, especially the intelligence and security establishment, seems generally opposed to freeing hundreds of prominent Palestinian prisoners on the grounds that such a step would boost Hamas's popularity, mostly at the expense of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) regime.
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By Hasan Afif El-Hasan The failure to achieve a two-state solution is a forgone conclusion because Israel has been allowed to flout the international laws with impunity. The Palestinians missed the last opportunity to establish their state on the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, which constitute only twenty-two percent of historical Palestine when the leaders of the PLO signed the 1993 Declaration of Principles (DOP) in Oslo. The DOP denied the UN any role in the so called peace process. Oslo gave the Israelis time to create facts on the ground, tighten their grip on the territories and sustain the illusion that the Palestinian Authority (PA) rules the Palestinians. The Oslo agreements set the stage for the end of the two-state solution until President Bush declared its death when he gave in writing US support of Israel’s refusal to withdraw to the pre-June 1967 borders and its insistence on annexing Jewish settlements and denying the refugees’ right of return. There is no progress toward a peace agreement, no removal of hundreds of checkpoints and no halt in settlements expansion or the construction of the separation wall or the raids and assassinations. The only positive development is the recent cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel that may lead to occasional open border crossing gates without lifting the siege on Gaza and the West Bank, but the cease-fire cannot be an alternative to having a Palestinian state. With the failure of the so called peace talks, the Palestinians have to consider their options. |
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In a statement carried by the official Palestinian news agency, Maa, Hamas leaders warned other militant factions against taking actions that threaten Hamas' cease-fire with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Fatah's armed wing, the Al-Aksa Brigade, has fired several shells into Israel from Gaza since the June 19 cease-fire went into effect, and Islamic Jihad has fired rockets into Israel. Israel's military has not responded, but Israel has delayed reopening border crossings along the Gaza-Israel line.
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Olmert gains reprieve with agreement to hold primaries
Hamas urges factions exercise restraint; condemns IOF crimes in W. Bank
[ 24/06/2008 - 09:22 PM ]
GAZA, (PIC)-- Hamas Movement has urged on Tuesday Palestinian resistance factions for self-control, and invited them to remain adherent to the Palestinian national consensus on the truce in the Gaza Strip.
However, the Movement called on all concerned parties in the regional and international arenas to pressure the Israeli occupation government in order to stop its crimes against the Palestinian people in the West Bank.
In a written statement he read, and a copy of which obtained by the PIC, Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, the spokesman of Hamas Movement in Gaza Strip, said, "Hamas Movement confirms her adherence to the truce agreement, and calls on all Palestinian resistance factions to abide by what had been agreed-upon nationally", explaining that Hamas was discussing the truce with Palestinian factions to keep it intact.
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Democratic presidential candidate sends Bush letter expressing unwavering support for Israel. 'We must press Egypt to devote more resources and effort to stopping the smuggling of weapons into Gaza,' he says
Yitzhak Benhorin
Published: 06.25.08, 10:48 / Israel News
“We must press Egypt to devote more resources and effort to stopping the smuggling of weapons into Gaza from the Sinai, where much of Hamas’ weaponry arrives from,” Democratic US presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama said in a letter addressed to US President George W. Bush.
In the letter Obama reiterated many of the positions he presented at AIPAC’s annual conference in Washington at the beginning of the month.
Clarifying his support for Israel Obama wrote, “A fundamental principle of America’s Middle East policy must be our unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security. I believe that is a bipartisan commitment and I will work to continue and advance that consensus. But I am deeply concerned that Israel’s security has been put at greater risk, both because of renewed threats from implacable enemies like Iran, Hizbullah, and Hamas, and because of policy choices by the United States.”
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Fri Jun 20, 2008 3:30am EDT
By Adam Entous
RAMALLAH, West Bank, June 20 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is pushing through an overhaul of his security forces by decree, retiring old-guard commanders and giving broad law enforcement powers to a secretive special unit.
Several thousand top officers who rose through the ranks under the iconic late guerrilla leader Yasser Arafat have so far given up command with Abbas offering pre-retirement promotions and pensions equal to their full wages, according to interviews and presidential orders seen by Reuters.
The U.S.-backed overhaul, which envisages shedding about 30,000 security jobs and building a more streamlined gendarmerie as part of Washington's drive for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, has picked up pace in recent months, following Abbas's loss of the Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists a year ago.
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Robert Dreyfuss Tue Jun 17, 2:01 AM ET
The Nation -- John McCain says he won't talk to Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Barack Obama might talk to Syria, but he's having nothing to do with Hezbollah and Hamas. I guess they know something that the Israeli government doesn't.
Over the past couple weeks, it's become increasingly clear that Israel is simultaneously, but separately, conducting talks with Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas.
The Israel-Syria talks, involving two top aides to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, are sponsored by Turkey. Haaretz, the Israeli daily, reported: "Two days of indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria in Turkey ended Monday, Israeli and Turkish officials said, adding that the atmosphere was positive and the contacts would continue." In India, where he arrived for a five-day visit, President Bashar Assad "said that India could play a 'direct' role in the ongoing talks between Syria and Israel." Talks will resume next month, the Turkish foreign minister said, and according to the New York Times, "The Israeli news media have been rife with reports that the Israeli team will try to persuade the Syrians to have their leaders meet face to face in Paris in mid-July at the conference, organized by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, to establish a Mediterranean Union." For Assad, the stumbling block for a face-to-face meeting is that he wants the United States to broker the deal, and the White House ain't playing. Possibly for that reason, the French are insisting that a direct meeting isn't likely.
Hanan Awarekeh
17/06/2008 "The IDF will respect a cease-fire but is also getting ready for a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip," Israeli occupation army Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi said on Tuesday during a session of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Ashkenazi also spoke of conditions in the West Bank, saying that the Palestinian Authority's policemen "are doing their work in the field of law and order, but not in the field of security."
Regarding Hezbollah, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, head of Military Intelligence's Research Branch, said that the group has built an infrastructure of underground tunnels despite Resolution 1701. "The only thing different today is that Hezbollah flags aren't hanging outside," he added.
In related news, the London-based Al-Hayat reported Tuesday that the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas will include three stages. Palestinian sources told the Arabic daily that the cease-fire will be in place for six months at first, and will later include the West Bank as well.
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But this is not another tirade about the dehumanizing reporting of the media, where the death of innocent nameless Palestinians are often, if not always, blamed, one way or another on the ‘militants”. Neither is the evoking of this freshest tragedy – the child victim is later named Hadeel al-Smeiri – is meant to underscore the daily crimes committed by the Israeli military against Palestinians in the occupied territories, ones that largely go unnoticed, buried in the not-so-important news items, or used to accentuate cold-hearted assertions such as blaming Palestinians themselves for forcing Israel’s hand to carry out such tragic ‘acts of retaliation.’
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Battered Gaza, a new line of thinking goes, could be turned from a war-ravaged "Mogadishu" into a prosperous hub such as Dubai. First, though, the "terrorists" Hamas have to be smashed into oblivion. Anyway, that's not the real issue as Gaza goes way beyond Hamas: it is directly connected to the larger Israel and United States-Iran confrontation.
Asia Times
Jun 14, 2008
THE ROVING EYE
Gaza: Mogadishu or Dubai?
By Pepe Escobar
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
WASHINGTON - Democratic Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama went to the ultra high-powered American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) meeting in Washington last week and said, unambiguously, that Jerusalem should be the "undivided" capital of Israel. The packed auditorium may have exploded with joy. Public opinion in the Arab world - where there's enormous goodwill towards Obama - was dismayed, if not appalled.
But then it was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who may have thrown the real bomb at AIPAC. Sounding every bit like Republican presidential candidate John McCain, she predictably blasted Iran, Shi'ite Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine. Then, in the middle of her speech, she said, "The expansion of violence in the Middle East makes the establishment of a peaceful Palestinian state more urgent, not less.
"The present opportunity is not perfect by any means, but it is better than any other in recent years and we need to seize it. Israelis have waited too long for the security they desire and deserve, and Palestinians have waited too long amidst daily humiliations for the dignity of a Palestinian state."
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The Associated Press can always be relied upon to facilitate the economic, military, and political rape of defenseless people by imperial powers. They are the most prolific source of contrived controversy, myopic context, factual omissions, and general disinformation in favor of state tyranny and aggression against common people everywhere.
Nowhere is that prowess more evident than in AP news wire reports out of the Middle East—namely, Jerusalem and Gaza City. A few such reports from the 5th and 6th of June combine to form a microcosm of how AP depicts Palestinian life and property as being of lesser value than Israeli life and property.
The report from the 5th is titled “Israel: Hamas mortar shell attack kills 1.” [1]
I’m not sure why, but I get a funny feeling that Israelis helped craft the report. In any case, the story, under the byline of a Mr. Josef Federman in Jerusalem, begins:
Hamas militants fired a barrage of mortar shells into southern Israel on Thursday, killing one person and wounding three others on a communal farm near the border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials said. . . .
The attack is “part of our continuous confrontation and response to the Zionist invasions along the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip,” Hamas said.
What Hamas is referring to here is what AP and corporate media have been purposefully concealing.
--MORE--Barack Obama: Ethnic Cleanser
Tales from the Trail
Tracking the 2008 U.S. campaign
WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may have taken care of his Hamas problem onWednesday with a speech to the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby.
The Illinois senator was ridiculed, criticized and generally harassed back in April when a top Hamas adviser, Ahmed Yousef, told a radio interviewer that the Palestinian militant group — considered a terrorist organization 
by the U.S. government — liked Obama and hoped he would win the U.S. presidential election.
That may have changed Wednesday, when Obama went before American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington a day after clinching the Democratic nomination and declared his strong support for Israel.
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