Free Republic

Fr Ibrahim, parish priest of Ramallah, told AsiaNews that classrooms have been burned, church window panes destroyed, bible study halls set on fire and Catholic youth are being threatened by Muslims. The cleric said suspicion is falling on “Palestinians against the Hamas government”. Ramallah (AsiaNews) – Burned school rooms, church window panes destroyed, bible study halls set on fire and Catholic youth threatened by Muslims: thus runs a list of escalating violent attacks against Christians in Ramallah since Hamas won the election. The parish priest, Fr Ibrahim Hijazin, 55 years, reported the violence to AsiaNews. Fr Ibrahim has been the...

The Israeli army said Saturday it had intercepted a car bomb in the West Bank city of Qalqilya believed headed for an attack on the Jewish state. According to Israeli reports, troops had already intercepted three car bombs and arrested 15 would-be Palestinian suicide bombers since they reoccupied nearly all the West Bank three weeks ago. The Israeli army said it had carried out a controlled explosion of the vehicle, which carried Israeli licence plates. The car had been spotted on a road leading out of the West Bank Friday evening and a search had revealed it contained four bombs...

GAZA STRIP, July 10 (IslamOnline) – Ismael Hanya, the director of the office of Hamas's spiritual leader Ahmad Yaseen, said Tuesday that the new Palestinian Minister of Interior Lieutenant Abdul Razzaq Al Yahya met during the last few days with a number of Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip in the first meeting of its kind between a Palestinian minister and the leaders of the movement. IslamOnline's correspondent knew that the meeting took place in one of Gaza's hotels. Hanya, one of Hamas's leaders told IslamOnline that the meeting was “to coordinate, get to know and to start a system...

A two-day conference has opened in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in support of the Palestinian uprising against the Israelis. Held in commemoration of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, father of the Iranian revolution, it brought together many figures regarded by both Israel and the US as hardened terrorists. Among them were leaders from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas movements, and from the Lebanese Hezbollah. There was also Ahmed Jibril, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, whose son Jihad was killed last month in Beirut in what was believed to be an Israeli action. Martyrdom...