US denies it pressured Abbas to delay UN action on Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 6, 2009 - 12:00am

The United States denied reports on Monday that it pressured President Mahmoud Abbas to allow the United Nations to delay action to bring alleged Israeli war criminals to justice. At the daily State Department press briefing on Monday, spokesperson Ian Kelly was asked about reports that US officials demanded that Abbas ask the UN Human Rights Council to delay a vote the report of investigator Richard Goldstone.

»

Ramallah PLC members side with Abbas over Gaza report fiasco
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 6, 2009 - 12:00am

Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) asked Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Maliki on Monday for an explanation as to why Palestinian diplomats dropped their endorsement of a key United Nations report on alleged war crimes in Gaza. A statement that emerged from the Ramallah meeting was much less critical of Abbas and his government than a parallel but separate meeting of Hamas-affiliated lawmakers in the Gaza Strip that denounced President Mahmoud Abbas as a traitor for moving to delay international action on the report by Judge Richard Goldstone.

»

Report: Hamas arrests militants planning to fire rockets at Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
October 6, 2009 - 12:00am

The Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip have arrested over the last two days a number of Palestinian militants planning to fire rockets at western Israel, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported Tuesday. The report quoted group sources as saying Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has organized a crackdown against Palestinian factions to curb the attacks against Israel. Hamas has warned the factions not to fire rockets under any circumstances, according to the report, even in response to Israeli measures at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

»

UN to teach children about Holocaust in Gaza schools
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Donald MacIntyre - October 5, 2009 - 12:00am

The United Nations' refugee agency is planning to include the Holocaust in a new human-rights curriculum for pupils in its Gaza secondary schools despite strident opposition to the idea from within Hamas. John Ging, the UN Relief and Works Agency's (UNRWA) director of operations in Gaza, told The Independent that he was "confident and determined" that the Holocaust would feature for the first time in a wide-ranging curriculum that is being drafted.

»

Palestinians outraged over Abbas bowing to Israel, US
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Ilene Prusher - October 5, 2009 - 12:00am

Demonstrators descended Monday on this city's most famous traffic circle, Manara Square, which for years was a launching point of Palestinian protests against the Israeli occupation.

»

Hamas vows to maintain ceasefire - if Israel reciprocates
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 2, 2009 - 12:00am

Hamas prefers peace to war but will nonetheless resume armed resistance if Israel opts to continue regular attacks on Gaza, senior Hamas leader Ahmad Yousef explained. The official, who serves as an advisor to Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on foreign affairs, said that the current ceasefire between the Islamic movement and Israel was for the benefit of Palestinians in the Strip, but that Hamas reserved the right to defend them.

»

UN: number of `abject poor' in Gaza triples
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Associated Press
by Ben Hubbard - October 2, 2009 - 12:00am

The number of Gazans living in "abject" poverty has tripled this year to 300,000, or one in five residents, the Gaza head of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees said Thursday. Gaza's economy has foundered under an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade imposed after the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007 from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. John Ging, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency's top official in Gaza, called the rise in poverty a "predictable consequence" of the border blockade.

»

Israel, Hamas in mutual gestures on prisoners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Nidal Al-Mughrabi - September 30, 2009 - 12:00am

Israel will free 20 Palestinian women from jail as early as Friday in exchange for a videotape from Hamas proving an Israeli soldier held in the Gaza Strip since 2006 is alive, officials on both sides said on Wednesday. Egyptian and German mediators are continuing to work on a final deal to swap the soldier, Gilad Shalit, for hundreds of Hamas prisoners. The negotiations are part of international efforts to ease Israel's blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

»

Two die in smuggling tunnels after airstrike
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
September 30, 2009 - 12:00am

Two Palestinians died as a result of a gas leak inside a smuggling tunnel along Gaza’s border with Egypt in the city of Rafah, medics said on Wednesday. Medicals at Abu Yousef An-Najjar Hospital in Rafah said Muhammad Jalal Abu Sef, 45, and Riziq Al-Masri, 28, were dead when they arrived. Thirteen others were injured as a result of the gas leak, which occurred after Israeli warplanes bombed the tunnels. It was not immediately clear if the gas leak was a direct result of the airstrikes.

»

Good news
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
September 29, 2009 - 12:00am

News coming out of Cairo recently suggests that the Egyptian mediation efforts may have reached a breakthrough in reconciling the differences between Fateh and Hamas. It appears that the two Palestinian factions are now ready to settle their differences and reach a viable compromise. The attempts to bring the two Palestinian movements closer seem to have succeeded in convincing Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal, who recently visited Cairo, of the wisdom of such move; now he is expected to give his approval to the Egyptian ideas, at least in principle.

»


American Task Force on Palestine - 1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 725, Washington DC 20006 - Telephone: 202-262-0017