ISIS affiliate in Gaza claims failed rocket launch on first day of school year
Militants in Gaza attempted to fire a rocket at the Ashkelon region Tuesday morning, triggering Israel’s rocket alarm system.
Militants in Gaza attempted to fire a rocket at the Ashkelon region Tuesday morning, triggering Israel’s rocket alarm system.
Iran’s foreign ministry on Wednesday reiterated its support for Hamas and other anti-Israel terrorist groups and said that aiding those who “stand against the Zionist regime is a principle of Iran’s policy.”
The Israeli military carried out an airstrike in the central Gaza Strip Wednesday night, in response to a Palestinian rocket attack earlier.
Fatah officials in the West Bank on Monday expressed deep concern over reports that Hamas and Israel are close to signing a long-term truce.
Israel police and Shin Bet operatives arrested early in July Ibrahim Adel Shehadeh Shaer, a 21-year-old resident of Rafah and Hamas fighter with significant knowledge of Hamas’ activities, Ynet News reported.
A year after a bitter 50-day war, Hamas has again dug numerous attack tunnels from Gaza into Israeli sovereign territory, and is gearing up with major Iranian assistance for another conflict, a TV report said Tuesday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal met in Doha, Qatar, this week to discuss ways to implement a Palestinian state.
Islamic State insurgents threatened on Tuesday to turn the Gaza Strip into another of their Middle East fiefdoms, accusing Hamas, the organization that rules the Palestinian territory, of being insufficiently stringent about religious enforcement.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that Hamas has until Tuesday to join a new unity government.
Hamas said Wednesday it rejected any unilateral dissolution of the Palestinian unity government after senior officials reported that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced the government would resign.
Last week, Hamas Political Bureau member Mahmoud Al-Zahar said that Hamas wants to build an Islamic state in all of Palestine, meaning it would replace Israel.
The rift between Fatah and Hamas, which developed over the course of Operation Protective Edge, continued to widen Saturday, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke to Egyptian reporters, threatening to break their current partnership if the organization in Gaza doesn’t begin to make some changes.
Former Israeli President Shimon Peres emerged from a Vatican City audience with Pope Francis Thursday after proposing a kind of United Nations for religions.
Prime Minister Netanyahu met in secret with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan before the Gaza ceasefire was announced Tuesday.
As a ceasefire has been holding overnight, Hamas claimed victory in the recent conflict as Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said Palestinians would build their own airport and seaport without asking for anyone’s permission to prepare for the “project of liberation” of all of Palestine.
Despite continuing rocket fire, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have reportedly accepted the language of an Egyptian ceasefire proposal.
Hamas defiantly vowed, after the killing of three of its senior commanders by Israel, that it would be “strengthened” in its quest “to lift the siege on Gaza” and “liberate Jerusalem and Palestine from the neo-Nazi occupier who destroys houses and kills women and children.” Meanwhile, Israel is closer to a full-scale ground operation than any point since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, an Israeli minister told Israel’s Army Radio.
Israel killed three of Hamas’ senior commanders in overnight strikes as at least 168 rockets were launched at Israel since midnight breaking the previous high of 154 rockets fired in a day. Meanwhile, Israeli ministers called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to wage a ‘war of attrition’ with Hamas, but to overwhelm the terrorist organization with military force.
Hamas violated an extended ceasefire some 8 hours before it was set to expire by firing over 50 rockets into Israel on Tuesday evening. Israel responded by killing a Hamas military chief and destroying some 30 terror targets in Gaza. Hamas’ armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said Israel had ‘opened the gates of hell on itself’ by the killings and warned that the Jewish state would pay for its crimes. Israel recalled 2,000 reservists, as it prepares for a possible ground operation into the Gaza Strip.
Israeli and Palestinian delegations restarted indirect talks in Cairo over the weekend, however Israeli officials were skeptical a truce could be reached by Monday’s midnight deadline. Over the weekend, Hamas threatened a “war of attrition” if its demands were not met. Meanwhile, Israel threatened “harsh strikes” if Hamas broke the ceasefire with any type of fire against the Jewish state and Israeli officials said “quiet and security’ will be restored ‘one way or another.’