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  •  Israeli report says Palestinian uprising unlikely this year  •  Palestinians expected to continue efforts to isolate Israel  •  Israel continues to dominate political discourseWhen will the Palestinians revolt? The answer, according to an Israeli official: not this year (as quoted by Agency France Press). An internal Israeli Foreign Ministry report last month also concluded that a third Palestinian intifada or uprising was 'unlikely' this year. According to the unnamed official, "This report, which is more than 100 pages long, judges that an explosion of generalized violence in the form of a third intifada is unlikely." Instead, it was resolved that Palestinians would "continue to...

s a resident of Berkeley and therefore one of your constituents, I am writing with two purposes: a) to let you know that I will be sailing later this month to the Gaza Strip aboard a vessel called The Audacity of Hope, which will join 10 or 12 other ships, with more than 1,000 passengers from all over the world, in this year's Gaza Freedom Flotilla; and b) to request that you use your good offices to demand that the Israeli government not interfere with our mission and to insist that the State Department and other branches of the U.S....

A Palestinian blocked from joining his family in the Bay Area four years ago after being stopped at San Francisco International Airport with material on the Islamist group Hamas in his computer can be deported as a potential terrorist, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The man's lawyer said, however, that the United States has not yet found a country that will accept him. Tareq Abufayad, then 24, was returning from college in Egypt to join his family in San Mateo four years ago today when he was questioned at the airport by a customs agent who said Abufayad had...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Hamas has sent a sharp warning to Israel in the form of an animated film about an Israeli soldier it has held in Gaza for nearly four years. The short film appeared Sunday on the website of Hamas' armed wing. .

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- The Hamas government on Thursday executed two men accused of collaborating with Israel, signaling an escalation in the militant Palestinian group's method of controlling the Gaza Strip.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's judiciary has asked Interpol to issue arrest warrants for 15 Israelis in connection with the Gaza offensive, Iranian state TV reported Monday. Interpol denied receiving such a request. The TV said a court set up to investigate Iranian complaints against Israel provided Interpol with a list of Israeli leaders and details on accusations against them. Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi was quoted as saying Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were all on the list. Others were top military officers involved in the recent offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers. However,...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- A Palestinian fighter died in a clash with Israeli troops and Israeli aircraft attacked two targets in Gaza on Monday as mediators tried to broker a long-term cease-fire a day before Israel holds national elections. The militant group Islamic Jihad said in a statement that one of its fighters was killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military said troops spotted an armed militant trying to cross the Gaza-Israel border late Sunday and opened fire, after which a bomb belt he was wearing detonated.

"Hamas have internalized the extent of the physical and moral blow inflicted upon it. Unlike arrogant statements sounded in the media, the organization is conducting serious soul-searching on its strategic mistakes and operational failures," Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin said Sunday in the weekly cabinet meeting. "Two weeks after the cease-fire began, terrorists not belonging to Hamas are challenging the organization and carrying out attacks in order to bring on another escalation. Hamas is deterred and respecting the cease-fire, but not doing enough to discourage the others," he continued. "Operation Cast Lead improved Israeli deterrence and brought radical factions...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- More than 5,000 Hamas supporters rallied in Gaza on Friday, as a leader of the Islamic militant group emerged from hiding to declare victory in the 23-day Israeli offensive that devastated much of the Palestinian territory. Hamas lawmaker Khalil al-Hayeh appeared in public for the first time since the war's start on Dec. 27 and remained defiant despite Hamas' heavy losses. "We thank God when we see our houses bombed and our institutions destroyed, but our people say yes to the resistance and yes to martyrdom for the sake of God," al-Hayeh said, standing...

Hamas's Academic Cheerleaders [incl. Hamid Dabashi, Rashid Khalidi, Fawaz Gerges, Joseph Massad, Muqtedar Khan, Mark LeVine, et al.] If further proof was needed that the field of Middle East studies is marred by a politicized, morally vacuous approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the reaction of many of its leading lights to the current war in Gaza should suffice.According to these self-appointed arbiters of international law, Israel's military campaign against Hamas following the firing of over 6,000 rockets at Israeli civilian targets since 2005 is unjustified. Hamas, they tell us, is not a terrorist organization bent on Israel's destruction, but rather...

JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) -- Gaza's streets brimmed with energy Monday as people picked up the pieces of their lives, while Israeli officials said they planned to pull all troops from the territory by Barack Obama's inauguration as president of the United States on Tuesday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon planned to travel to Gaza on Tuesday to inspect the damage and visit United Nations facilities hit in the fighting. The visit will make him the highest-ranking international official to visit the territory since Hamas militants took it over in June 2007. Ban will not meet officials from Hamas, whose government is...

At a Hanukkah candle-lighting at the Shin Bet security services headquarters two weeks ago, Yuval Diskin spoke with former heads of departments about the organization's preparedness to confront Hamas. The head of the Shin Bet sounded quite cautious. Perhaps even he was surprised by the quality of the intelligence that he and his people had succeeded in providing the Israel Defense Forces during the months of planning that preceded Operation Cast Lead and in the days prior to its launch. Even those who object to the war in the Gaza Strip will find it hard not to agree that this...

(IsraelNN.com) The IDF reported that two well known Hamas terrorists were among the dead in the IDF strike on a school Tuesday which also killed over 40 civilians. According to the IDF, the terrorists were using the school to fire mortar shells at troops. The dead Hamas operatives were Imad Abu Askhar and Hassan Abu Askhar. The IDF said, “We face a very delicate situation where the Hamas is using the citizens of Gaza as a protective vest.”

(IsraelNN.com) Israel's steamroller success in its Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign against Hamas has allowed it to begin setting out conditions for a new truce, including foreign supervision at the Egyptian border. The Saudi Gazette published a report from Reuters that "Israel has conditioned any halt to its Gaza Strip offensive on international backing for new fortifications and monitoring on the Egyptian border to prevent Hamas from rebuilding tunnels and rearming." The government is determined to prevent a repeat of the failed Gaza Disengagement agreement and the ceasefire that officially ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Hamas terrorists amassed a huge...

A Grad rocket struck an empty kindergarten in Ashdod on Monday, sending several people into shock and causing heavy damage to buildings in the area. The facility was empty due to a Home Front Command directive to keep schools and kindergartens closed. Local residents had complied with safety instructions, entering bomb shelters and safe rooms after hearing the warning siren. The epicenter of the day's rocket attacks was Ashkelon, where five Grads damaged structures and sent people into shock. Another four landed later, causing no damage. By Monday evening, the day's total stood at 37 rockets fired at the South....

Three years after being evacuated from settlements in the Gaza Strip, some of the evacuees are now returning - in uniform. Aharon Cruz, a paratroops officer, lived in Netzarim for two years before the disengagement. On Sunday, he and his unit, to which he had been recalled a mere day after his wedding last Thursday, were back at the settlement's ruins in central Gaza. "On one hand, there's a feeling of 'what did we leave for?'" said his father, Rabbi Ze'ev Cruz. "On the other hand, there's joy that he is returning to a place he knows." The ground operation...

Hamas representatives claimed on Sunday that their militiamen were fighting against IDF troops in the Gaza Strip with weapons confiscated from the Palestinian Authority in the summer of 2007. They said Hamas had managed to lay its hands on all the weapons that Israel, the US and other countries had given forces loyal to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas had also seized dozens of armored vehicles used by Abbas's security forces, they added. After its men took full control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas announced that it had seized tens of thousands of rifles and pistols, including heavy...

(IsraelNN.com) The IAF hit a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City on Thursday evening. The strike targeted senior Hamas terrorist Nabil Abu el-Amrin.Powerful secondary blasts were seen from the air after Amrin's house was hit, confirming IDF intelligence according to which the building was used to store large quantities of explosives and ammunition. It was not immediately clear if Amrin was killed in the strike.On Thursday afternoon the IAF hit and killed Nizar Rayyan, making him the most senior Hamas terrorist to be killed by Israel in several years. Several others were killed in the blast as well. Paramedics believe...

ASHDOD, ISRAEL — For many residents of southern Israel, the fighting in the nearby Gaza Strip is measured not in days or hours, but in the number of seconds they have to take cover when Hamas rockets rain down. In coastal Ashdod, where a woman was killed by a rocket on Monday, about 40 seconds elapse between the “Code Red” warning sounded over loudspeakers and the blast of impact. The city is 35 kilometres from north Gaza and, before Israel launched an air assault on Hamas on Saturday, had been untouched by the Palestinian Islamists' salvoes. Many of its 230,000...

RESIDENTS at certain addresses in the Gaza Strip have been receiving unusual phone calls since the Israeli air assault began on Saturday - a request that they and their families leave their homes as soon as possible for their own safety. More unusual than the recorded message is the Arabic-speaking caller, who identifies himself as being from the Israeli defence forces, The Australian reports. Dipping into their bag of tricks for the updated Gaza telephone numbers, Israel's intelligence services are warning Palestinian civilians in Gaza living close to Hamas facilities that they may be hurt unless they distance themselves from...