Clipmarks | RecordSage's 'hamas' clips

Gaza - One year later

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:48:30 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage

A year under Hamas: Gaza safer, but life is desperate

GAZA CITY, Gaza (CNN) -- "If you take pictures, I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" screamed a masked Fatah gunman, pointing his AK-47 assault rifle at my cameraman, Joe Duran.

"Calm down! Calm down!" I shouted back at him, turning to Joe to tell him to put the camera down.

Joe and I had ducked into a fruit and vegetable shop in Gaza City. We had been covering the funeral of a Fatah gunman killed in a clash with Hamas rivals when our third gunbattle of the day had broken out.

Earlier in the day, Joe and I were on a street corner videotaping Hamas militiamen when a jeep full of Fatah irregulars opened fire, just down the street from an elementary school.

As guns blazed, schoolchildren ran for cover.

I watched as shopkeeper Khadar Aliyan slammed shut the doors of his grocery store, the expression on his face one of fear and utter exasperation.

"I'm going home," he told me. "I'm afraid. We're done for. It's never been this bad."

Tags: gaza, hamas

palestinians don't want bin laden

Tue, 20 May 2008 18:12:46 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage
clipper's remarks: the man's losing his cause apparently... that's not right... let's try again. the man has no support from people central to his cause... anyway, something like that...

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Palestinians cool to Osama bin Laden

Message of support from al-Qaida leader draws little enthusiasm

RAMALLAH, West Bank - In his latest message, Osama bin Laden portrays himself as the only true defender of the Palestinians. But the Palestinians, even the Islamic militants of Hamas, didn't seem too enthusiastic Monday over the bear hug from the fugitive al-Qaida leader.

The moderate Palestinian government in the West Bank fears its quest for independence could be sullied by perceived links to terrorism. Even the rival Hamas regime in Gaza, labeled a terrorist group by the U.S. and Israel, sees al-Qaida as too extreme.

"Al-Qaida and bin Laden have caused huge damage to the image of Muslims and Arabs all over the world, and with his frequent statements about the Palestinians he just damages our image," said Nimr Hamad, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Tags: palestinians, bin laden

Hamas-style report by New York Times

Thu, 15 May 2008 05:37:36 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Rocket Hits as Bush Begins Israel Visit

Four Palestinians were killed, including two militants, and nine were wounded in a series of Israeli Army strikes and incursions into Gaza, said medics and witnesses there.

In the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, a rocket that the police said was launched from northern Gaza struck a commercial center, crashing through the roof of a health clinic and badly wounding a woman and her 2-year-old daughter, both in the head. The doctor who was attending to them and a fourth person were also badly hurt.

Maj. Gen. Uriel Bar-Lev, the police commander of Israel’s southern district, said bomb experts had determined that the rocket was Iranian-made. “It has Iranian fingerprints on it,” he said in an interview outside the mall, crushed glass underfoot.

Israeli leaders, meanwhile, said it seemed a matter of time before a military operation was undertaken.

Hamas, Carter - Same old, same old

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:14:34 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage
clipper's remarks: Jimmy Carter, or JC for short, thought he could live up to his shorter name... apparently not.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Hamas rejects Israeli recognition

Palestinian militant group Hamas will not recognise Israel, its political leader Khaled Meshaal has insited.

He was responding to comments by former US President Jimmy Carter, following their talks in Syria at the weekend.

Mr Meshaal said Hamas agreed to a Palestinian state on the land in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza that Israel captured in the 1967 war.

Mr Carter had said Hamas was prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbour next door in peace".

Speaking in Syria, where he lives in exile, Khaled Meshaal said the Palestinian state must have "Jerusalem as its capital, with genuine sovereignty, without settlements".

He added that this did not mean recognising Israel, but he said: "We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as an alternative to recognition."

Many Israelis and their allies do not believe Hamas' offer of a truce, says the BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen.

Taxes in Gaza cause Food to Rot

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 04:38:16 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage
clipper's remarks: Another example of "do unto your own... for the sake of insanity".

Clip Source: www.chinadaily.com.cn

Gazans battle blackouts as EU suspends fuel aid

The power outages began late on Friday when Gaza's only power plant -- which according to the EU provides between 25 and 30 percent of the territory's power -- shut down all but one of its generators.

It did so because its diesel supplies had dwindled after Israel shut the fuel border crossing, citing security concerns.

Israel reopened the crossing on Sunday, but diesel for the plant was not delivered because the EU -- which finances the supplies -- suspended payments out of "security concerns," forcing the plant to close completely.

"We are still assessing the situation" and hope to resume supplies either later on Monday or Tuesday, an EU spokeswoman in Jerusalem said.

In Brussels, European Commission spokeswoman Antonia Mochan said however it would not resume paying for fuel unless it receives assurances that Hamas will not tax electricity in Gaza.

Tags: gaza, hamas, electricity, taxes, blackout, fuel, eu, aid

palestinian lunacy - killing their own in hospitals

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:39:59 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage
clipper's remarks: if they treat their own this bad, can't really expect anything productive in treating their friends or enemies...

Clip Source: www.alertnet.org

OPT: Patients killed as gunmen storm Gaza hospitals

Patients are dying in crossfire as hospitals have been overrun by gunmen in a new wave of Gaza violence, which the UN has warned is jeopardising the delivery of essential humanitarian aid.

Hamas stormed the hospitals because it was worried Fatah would target its wounded fighters. Gaza hospitals have often been the scenes of firefights as the wounded from both sides receive treatment.

Four patients, including one in the operating theatre, died and 10 more were injured in a hospital in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, in violence that has led to the hospital's effective closure, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

About 80 percent of Gaza's refugee population is now totally dependent on aid, including food parcels, UNRWA said.

Tags: palestine, hospitals, terrorists

Israel retaliates for rocket attacks

Thu, 17 May 2007 16:29:38 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Israel launches retaliatory airstrikes, killing two

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Israel retaliated Thursday against two days of Hamas rocket attacks by launching airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza, killing two people and leaving more than 30 wounded, Palestinian security sources and an Israeli security source told CNN.

The first Israeli strike, on Hamas' executive force compound, killed one person and wounded 30, Palestinian medical sources said. A later Israeli airstrike targeted and hit a car in Gaza City, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces said.

The strike on Hamas' military wing headquarters came as violence ratcheted up between the warring Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah and between Palestinians and Israeli forces, claiming the lives of more than 40 Palestinians since Sunday.

The Israeli security source said Israeli forces have "more strategic targets" they can hit.

"We want to show the terrorists we know where they are," the source said.

Tags: israel, hamas, palestine, retaliation

Israel warns of hamas military buildup in Gaza

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 18:29:17 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage
clipper's remarks: The 'peacenicks' are at it again... digging tunnels, smuggling ground-to-air missiles and military grade explosives. How diplomatically peaceful of them....

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Israel Warns of Hamas Military Buildup in Gaza

JERUSALEM, March 31 — Hamas, the dominant faction in the Palestinian government, is building its military capacity in the Gaza Strip, constructing tunnels and underground bunkers and smuggling in ground-to-air missiles and military-grade explosives, senior Israeli officials say.

The officials, including a top military commander who spoke in an interview on Friday, said that Hamas had learned tactics from Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, which brought in and stored thousands of rockets in bunkers near the northern Israeli border before its war with Israel last summer.

The commander, who gave the briefing at the request of The New York Times and spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Hamas’s improved rockets had a range of about 10 miles, which would allow them to hit the Israeli town of Ashkelon.

Tags: israel, hamas, weapons, terrorism

Palestinian parliament approves fatah-hamas coalition

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:34:43 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage
clipper's remarks: New countdown to how soon they'll be shooting at each other starts... now...

Clip Source: voanews.com

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, left, and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh from Hamas, right, raise their linked arms as they move through the crowd at a special session of parliament in Gaza City 17 Mar 2007

The Palestinian parliament has overwhelmingly approved a new Fatah-Hamas coalition government.

Eighty-three members of the 132-member parliament voted in favor of the landmark Cabinet Saturday, clearing a formal hurdle in an attempt to end a crippling international aid boycott of the Palestinian Authority. Forty-one parliament members are in Israeli detention.

Israel has already rejected the new unity government. The Jewish state says it will not work with the new Palestinian government because it does not recognize Israel's right to exist.

He also called on the United States to rethink its position on the Palestinian issue, and said he looks forward to having good relations between Palestinians and the American people.

Tags: palestine, coalition, fatah, hamas, unity, parliament, israel

3 US women seized in West Bank

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:36:40 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage

Clip Source: www.alertnet.org

Three U.S. women seized in West Bank -source

(Adds quote, details)

By Atef Sa'ad

NABLUS, West Bank, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Three American women were seized in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, near the city of Nablus, a senior Palestinian security source told Reuters.

No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for any kidnapping.

"We received a tip that three American women were abducted. We are checking," the source said, adding no further details were immediately available.

If the women were abducted by militants it would be the first abduction of foreigners since Jan. 23 when a French diplomat and two bodyguards were held for a few hours.

At least 18 foreigners have been abducted by Palestinians in the past year, mostly in the Gaza Strip. They were all later released, within hours or days.

Security has fallen apart in Gaza and the West Bank amid a bitter power struggle between the ruling Hamas militant group and the Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas.

More than 90 Palestinians have been killed in factional fighting since December. The fighting has subsided since the groups reached a preliminary agreement to form a unity government in talks in Saudi Arabia earlier this month.

Tags: palestinians, terrorism, us, women, abduction

Russia Clashes With U.S. on Mideast Policy

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:10:21 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage
clipper's remarks: The title should've been "Russians want to continue selling weapons in the Middle East"

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Russia Clashes With U.S. on Mideast Policy

Official Urges Role for Syria And End of Hamas Isolation

Russia urged ending the isolation of the anti-Israeli militant group Hamas and including Syria in Middle East peace talks, exposing fissures in a high-level diplomatic group that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gathered yesterday in Washington to validate her new effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Russian proposals run directly counter to Rice's strategy of rallying what she calls "mainstream" Arabs to isolate what she calls "extremist" elements in the region.

Rice shot back that the United States, "even at the highest levels," has spoken to Syrian officials and that "Syria knows what it needs to do to be a stabilizing force."

A senior administration official, briefing reporters on the condition that his name not be disclosed, said the Russians did not suggest any of the ideas in preliminary meetings nor in yesterday's gathering of foreign ministers. "That is their view, but it isn't shared by others," he said.

The U.S. official boasted that the administration's campaign of isolating Hamas has been successful. He said the U.S. government believes that Hamas has been able to smuggle in only about $46 million in the past 10 months -- for a government that costs about $150 million a month to run. He said U.S. officials have succeeded in identifying and thwarting the delivery of about $400 million in funds that countries had planned to donate to the Hamas government. Instead, he said, the countries -- mainly Arab -- were persuaded to give the money directly to Abbas's independent presidential office.

"There is simply no reason to avoid the subject of how we get to a Palestinian state," Rice said yesterday. "I think, in fact, the political horizon of a Palestinian state can help to show the Palestinian people what is possible."

Tags: russia, usa, middle east, peace, plan, clash, syria

Severe mental illness in the land of palestine

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:51:24 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage
clipper's remarks: Amazing how inhumane some humans are.

Clip Source: www.jpost.com

We're very proud, bomber's family declares

The mother of Muhammad Faisal Saksak, the 21-year-old suicide bomber who carried out Monday's attack in Eilat, said she was aware of her son's plan to blow himself up and that she had wished him "good luck."

Dozens of Palestinians, chanting slogans against Israel and the US, converged on the family's home to "congratulate" them on the success of the attack.

"As he walked out of the house, he asked me to wish him good luck," she said. "I wished him good luck and I knew of his decision to become a martyr. Although I was aware of his intention, I did not know exactly when he was planning to carry out a martyrdom attack."

The mother of nine said she was proud of her son for carrying out the suicide attack.

Ruwaidah said she was prepared to "sacrifice" all her sons "for the sake of the Aksa Mosque and Palestine."

"I knew that he was going out to launch a martyrdom attack and I wished for him to become a martyr," he said. "The family is very proud of what Muhammad did. He always wanted to be a martyr and was among those who went out to fight against the Israeli soldiers each time they invaded the Gaza Strip."

Muhammad's wife, Nadia, said she shared the family's sense of "pride" for what her husband did.

"When I heard that he was martyred, I felt very proud of him," she said. "Why shouldn't I feel so when I know that he died for the sake of Palestine and Al-Aksa? It's much better than dying in the internal fighting between Fatah and Hamas."

Although the Saksak family insisted that Muhammad belonged to the Islamic Jihad, a spokesman for the armed wing of Fatah, Aksa Martyrs Brigades, claimed that his group was responsible for the attack.

Tags: palestine, terrorism, suicide bomber, family, pride

Gaza Death Toll Rises to 30

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:47:11 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage

Clip Source: www.allheadlinenews.com

UPDATE: Gaza Death Toll Rises to 30

Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - The number of Palestinians killed since the leading government factions Hamas and Fatah renewed their bloody power struggle on the streets of Gaza last Thursday rose to 30 on Monday morning.

Palestinian medical sources cited by Ynet said that most of those killed over the past four days have been Hamas members.

The fresh explosion of violence took place despite intense efforts by Palestinian President and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate a unity coalition with the ruling Hamas. Abbas has threatened to call for early elections if the situation does not stabilize and Hamas maintains its refusal to moderate its position regarding Israel.

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah offered to host talks between Hamas and Fatah in the Muslim holy city of Mecca. The offer was reportedly accepted by both factions, though it did nothing to curb the ongoing violence.

A day later, Mohammed Hussein, grand mufti of the Palestinian-controlled territories, took a shot at calming the situation by issuing a religious edict prohibiting Palestinian infighting.

"He who receives order to kill should refrain from doing so. Spilling blood is forbidden," Ha'aretz quoted Hussein as telling a news conference in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Most Palestinians fear their society is teetering on the brink of civil war, or has already crossed that line.

Tags: gaza, palestine, hamas, fatah, power, politics, death

Jimmy Carter's Jewish Problem

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 09:52:25 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Jimmy Carter's Jewish Problem

Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," while exceptionally sensitive to Palestinian suffering, ignores a legacy of mistreatment, expulsion and murder committed against Jews. It trivializes the murder of Israelis. Now, facing a storm of criticism, he has relied on anti-Semitic stereotypes in defense.

One cannot ignore the Holocaust's impact on Jewish identity and the history of the Middle East conflict. When an Ahmadinejad or Hamas threatens to destroy Israel, Jews have historical precedent to believe them. Jimmy Carter either does not understand this or considers it irrelevant.

His book, which dwells on the Palestinian refugee experience, makes two fleeting references to the Holocaust. The book contains a detailed chronology of major developments necessary for the reader to understand the current situation in the Middle East. Remarkably, there is nothing listed between 1939 and 1947. Nitpickers might say that the Holocaust did not happen in the region. However, this event sealed in the minds of almost all the world's people then the need for the Jewish people to have a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland. Carter never discusses the Jewish refugees who were prevented from entering Palestine before and after the war. One of Israel's first acts upon declaring statehood was to send ships to take those people "home."

Perhaps unused to being criticized, Carter reflexively fell back on this kind of innuendo about Jewish control of the media and government. Even if unconscious, such stereotyping from a man of his stature is noteworthy. When David Duke spouts it, I yawn. When Jimmy Carter does, I shudder.

Others can enumerate the many factual errors in this book. A man who has done much good and who wants to bring peace has not only failed to move the process forward but has given refuge to scoundrels.

Tags: jimmy carter, jews, book

Palestinians insist on a new enemy - Palestinians

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:11:20 GMT

clipped by: RecordSage
clipper's remarks: So much for "love thy brother"...

Clip Source: today.reuters.com

Four killed in Gaza fighting as tensions spiral

GAZA (Reuters) - Clashes erupted between forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas government in Gaza on Wednesday, killing four people in the worst bout of fighting since the rivals agreed a fragile truce two weeks ago.

At least 10 people were wounded in separate incidents across the Gaza Strip, hospital officials said.

Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas declared the ceasefire in the wake of violence that escalated after Abbas called for early elections to break a political deadlock with the Islamists.

Hamas condemned Abbas's move as a coup to oust it less than a year after it surprised Fatah to win a parliamentary ballot.

The fresh violence is likely to revive fears among Palestinians that Gaza could slip into civil war.

Tags: palestine, civil war, hamas, tatah