Airstrikes hit two sites in Gaza, none injured ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency (Blog) January 10, 2011 - 1:00am Shortly before midnight on Sunday night Israeli warplanes launched three missile strikes at areas said to be training grounds for Hamas’ military wing the Al-Qassam Brigades. The strikes, which caused no injuries according to medics in Gaza, hit east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, and in the northern Strip near Gaza City. The first hit landed in the south at 11:40 p.m. A second hit in the same area fell approximately 30 minutes later, and a third hit targeted an open area west of Gaza City shortly after 1a.m. » Read more

WEST BANK: Fall of Jerusalem hotel brings down hopes for revival of peace process ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times by Maher Abukhater - (Blog) January 9, 2011 - 1:00am As the Israeli bulldozers began to demolish Shepherd Hotel in the Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Sunday in order to build a new Jewish settlement in its place, Palestinians warned that not only the hotel has fallen, but also the entire peace process and U.S. efforts to revive it. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, strongly reacted to the hotel demolition. Its fall, he said, “has brought down with it all U.S. efforts (to revive the peace process) and ended any possibility to return to negotiations.” » Read more

Palestinian-American fights to buy Jerusalem housing project ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times by Maher Abukhater - January 10, 2011 - 1:00am A wealthy Palestinian-American businessman is fighting to take over a troubled real estate firm that builds Jewish-only housing units in Arab-dominated East Jerusalem, but right-wing Jewish groups have vowed to kill the deal. Bashar Masri, a West Bank native who holds American citizenship, has offered to buy debt-burdened Digal Investment and Holdings Ltd., which has been building the 400-unit Nof Zion housing project overlooking the Old City. » Read more

Israeli Demolition Begins in East Jerusalem Project ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Isabel Kershner - January 9, 2011 - 1:00am Israeli bulldozers demolished part of a landmark building in a predominantly Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Sunday to make way for a Jewish housing project, prompting condemnation from Palestinian officials and symbolic claims to the site from both sides. Plans for development at the landmark, the Shepherd Hotel, have been in the works since the 1980s. But Jerusalem officials did not give the final go-ahead for the project until March, at the height of tensions between Israel and the Obama administration over construction in contested East Jerusalem. » Read more