Free Republic

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip - Israeli ground troops, tanks and armored vehicles advanced on two northern Gaza towns Wednesday in pursuit of Palestinian rocket squads, besieging a well-known Hamas lawmaker's house and engaging militants in ferocious clashes, Palestinian officials said. Militants, undeterred by Israel's military might, pressed ahead with their rocket attacks on southern Israel. A 22-year-old Palestinian affiliated with the military wing of the ruling Hamas party was shot and killed while launching a projectile, the group said. Earlier in the day, a rocket hit an Israeli school just before pupils arrived. The surge in violence coincided with a...

BALATA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — Israeli troops on Thursday killed five Palestinians, including a top militant who said just a day earlier that he would never be caught, in Israel's largest military sweep since pulling out from the Gaza Strip last summer. Three of the dead were gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades — a violent offshoot of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party — killed during a shootout in their hide-out in the Balata refugee camp. The deaths brought to eight the number of Palestinians killed by army fire since the Balata sweep began Monday. The military...

Arafat Aide Announces Elections Wed Jun 26, 4:35 AM ET By JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writer JERICHO, West Bank (AP) - An aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ( news - web sites) announced Wednesday that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held in January 2003, with precise dates to be announced later. The announcement by Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian cabinet minister and key Arafat aide, comes two days after President Bush ( news - web sites) called for a change in the Palestinian leadership, and set sweeping democratic reforms and new elections as conditions for a provisional Palestinian state....

<p>JERUSALEM (AP) --  Journalist Mohammed Daraghmeh, who reports on events in the West Bank for The Associated Press, was detained by Israeli troops Tuesday during an arrest sweep of his neighborhood in the West Bank city of Nablus.</p> <p>Daraghmeh and other men in his apartment building were handcuffed and taken away by Israeli troops, said Daraghmeh's wife, Mervat.</p>