Abbas calls on prisoners to press for unity
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
April 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on prisoners on Sunday to press the factions to reconcile and achieve national unity. Once again, the prisoners should exert pressure on everybody to make national unity, Abbas said when receiving families of prisoners at his office in Ramallah, a day after Palestinians marked the Prisoners' Day. In 2006, the Palestinian prisoners drafted a plan supporting Saud Arabia's efforts in the formation of a unity government. However, the government collapsed in June 2007 after ruling for three months owing to Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza.

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Palestinian PM may reshuffle West Bank government: source
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
April 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad may reshuffle his government which holds sway in the West Bank, a government source said on Monday. A member of the government told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that there were discussions between President Mahmoud Abbas' office and the government to conduct the reshuffle. Earlier in the day, pan-Arab al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported that the differences focus on the interior ministry, as members of Abbas's Fatah party wants someone from the security establishment to hold that portfolio.

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Hamas vows to continue executions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
April 19, 2010 - 12:00am

The Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas) will continue executing collaborators and people convicted of serious crimes in the Gaza Strip, Hamas interior minister Fathi Hammad said Monday. "Executions would be carried out against anybody trying to stand on the way of the people or trying to contact the Zionist enemy and convey information to it," Hammad told a press conference in Gaza city. "The government won't step back implementing executions against those who harmed our national interests."

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Fatah Behind Bid to Reshuffle the PA Cabinet?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Rachelle Kliger - April 19, 2010 - 12:00am

Conflicting views over participation of high-ranking Fatah members in the Ramallah-based government. Rumors of an imminent reshuffle in the Palestinian cabinet have ignited debate over expanding Fatah Party presence under the independent Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is planning a cabinet re-shuffle to include more members of Fatah’s Central Committee.

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Hamas…and Sanitation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Tariq Alhomayed - (Opinion) April 18, 2010 - 12:00am

According to what was reported by Israeli Army Radio a few days ago, a delegation of experts and engineers affiliated to Hamas's so-called government in Gaza visited Israel in secret around two and a half months ago "with the goal of benefiting from Israel expertise in the field of wastewater treatment and turning this into potable drinking water." For its part, Hamas quickly denied this, which was expected and something that we have gotten used to from previous secret visits to Israel, particularly as there have been many such visits.

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Hamas executes two Palestinians in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Nidal Al-Mughrabi - April 15, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas said on Thursday it executed by firing squad two Palestinians convicted by a Gaza military court in 2009 of collaborating with Israel. It was the first time that Islamist group has carried out formal executions since the it seized control of the Gaza Strip three years ago from the rival Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, which governs in the occupied West Bank. A Hamas government official confirmed the executions after the bodies of two men arrived at a Gaza hospital. The group's interior ministry said they were carried out by firing squad.

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ATFP Senior Fellow Lectures at George Washington University
Press Release - Contact Information: Hussein Ibish - April 15, 2010 - 12:00am

ATFP Senior Fellow Hussein Ibish lectured on internal Palestinian politics and the dynamics of Palestinian-Israeli peace at George Washington University on April 13, 2010. Ibish traced the development of the present Palestinian national consensus on pursuing a negotiated two state peace agreement with Israel from the origins of the revivified Palestinian national movement in the late 60s. He told the students that the Palestinian national movement was largely dormant after the obliteration of all Palestinian institutions following the 1948 war and the establishment of the state of Israel.


Islamic Jihad: Hamas has secret ceasefire deal with Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
April 12, 2010 - 12:00am

De facto government police in Gaza released on Sunday a group of resistance fighters affiliated with the militant wings of Islamic Jihad and Fatah following a four-hour detention, sources within the movements said. The release was conditional, sources said, and the men were asked to promise to abstain from any resistance activity in the near future. According to a second source, the group was planning a "qualitative operation" against Israeli forces somewhere in Gaza.

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Palestinians in Gaza face new challenge -- taxes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Nidal Al-Mughrabi - April 12, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas has begun taxing Gaza street vendors and shopkeepers, raising speculation the ruling Islamist group is in a financial crisis fuelled partly by Egypt's building of a border wall to stop smuggling tunnels. Experts said on Monday that perhaps only a few dozen of the hundreds of tunnels are still functional as a result of the steel wall being pounded deep into the ground along the 14-km (8-mile)-long frontier.

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Fatah to move unilaterally to end rift with Hamas: official
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
April 12, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party will try unilaterally to end political split between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, a member of Fatah central committee said Monday. Abbas headed a meeting of the central committee in Ramallah Sunday, during which the members "agreed to exert more efforts in the Fatah side to speed up the Palestinian internal reconciliation, " Fatah official Mahmoud al-Aloul told Xinhua.

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