Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is close to announcing a series of additional punitive measures against the Gaza Strip, as Egyptian efforts to end the power struggle between his Fatah faction and Hamas appear to have reached a dead end, Palestinian sources in Ramallah said on Wednesday.
Palestinian factions and activists have called for the abrogation of the Olso Accords, and said that the agreements that were signed between the PLO and Israel 25 years ago have failed to fulfill Palestinian aspirations for statehood and independence.
The military on Saturday said it would launch an inquest into claims of a fatal shooting of two Palestinian teens by Israeli forces during a Gaza border riot on Friday.
Gaza’s Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar openly admitted on Tuesday that the weekly ‘March of Return’ protests staged on the Gaza border in recent months were intended to avert an internal crisis and divert pressure onto the Israelis.
Hamas said on Monday that it will not lay down its weapons or ‘pay any political price’ as part of any cease-fire agreement with Israel.
It is unlikely coincidental that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas this weekend restated a call for ‘popular resistance’ against Israel, as the PA boss, back up against the wall, is seen by critics as having resorted to the often-used tactic of deflecting blame away from his own shortcomings and onto the ‘occupation.’
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned Saturday that he will not allow for two separate entities to rule Palestinian lands, effectively admitting that Ramallah was actively trying to torpedo the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas.
If the emerging cease-fire arrangement with Hamas includes some kind of port or shipping corridor from Cyprus to Gaza, as some reports have indicated, no one has yet cued in the Cypriots.
Representatives of various Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip headed to Cairo on Tuesday for talks with Egyptian intelligence officials on the possibility of reaching a truce agreement with Israel, and ending the Hamas-Fatah power struggle.
After a two-day lull in violence along the Gaza Strip-Israel border, the Los Angeles Times quoted a senior Israeli official Monday as saying that a cease-fire agreement with Hamas, the Islamist organization that rules Gaza, is ‘virtually done.’
Israel will restore total quiet its southern region near the border with the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday.
A senior army official warned Thursday morning that Israel was nearing a full-blown military confrontation in the Gaza Strip after hundreds of rockets were launched overnight by Palestinian terror groups, adding that the government could begin evacuating communities near the coastal enclave in preparation.
After two days that saw the worst exchange of fire between Israel and Hamas since the 2014 war, a fragile truce prevailed Friday in Gaza, with no rocket attacks or airstrikes since an apparent ceasefire went into effect at midnight.
The United States condemned the Hamas terror group on Thursday for launching some 180 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli population centers and defended Israel’s military response in the worst exchange of fire since the 2014 war.
Palestinians in Gaza are reporting heavy bombardments by the Air Force in the northern Gaza Strip, primarily in the Jabalia and Rafah regions, in response to militants firing dozens of rockets at southern Israel Wednesday evening resulting in a number of injuries in Sderot. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to convene Security Cabinet Wednesday night.
Rocket barrages by the Hamas terror group continued throughout the night. The military said over 150 rockets and mortar shells were launched at Israeli communities since Wednesday evening.
Senior Hamas officials who held talks with Egyptian intelligence officials in Cairo over the past three days were scheduled to arrive in the Gaza Strip Thursday to meet with party leaders, sources close to the Islamist movement said.
The US Senate easily passed a $716.3 billion defense authorization bill Wednesday that includes funding for Israel to defend itself against Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as ramping up military spending and bolstering America’s posture against Russia while avoiding policy changes that would have antagonized US President Donald Trump.
Israel is making ‘great strides’ toward a broad military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Minister of Public Security and Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan asserted Thursday, following an escalation of violence with Gaza overnight.
Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, announced Thursday morning that its forces were going on high alert, deploying at the highest readiness level in expectation of a possible full-blown war with Israel.