Hamas popularity rises after Gaza war

Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians has risen sharply since a three-week Israeli war in January devastated the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip, an opinion poll released Monday showed.

If an election were held today, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would beat Mahmoud Abbas, the Western-backed Palestinian president and leader of Fatah who advocates a peace deal with Israel.

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Gaza to face more Israeli operation

In light of the continuing rocket fire on the South since the end of Operation Cast Lead, Public Security Minster Avi Dichter said Sunday he had “no doubt” that there would be other such operations in the future.

Speaking to Israel Radio, Dichter said that the operation had achieved its main objective of hitting Hamas hard, citing “700 Hamas gunmen killed and some one thousand wounded,” but he conceded that it hadn’t totally deterred the group from launching more rockets and smuggling weapons.

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Iran has enough nuclear fuel to make bomb

The United States believes Iran has stockpiled enough nuclear fuel to make a bomb, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said on Sunday.

“We think they do, quite frankly,” Mullen said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program when asked whether Iran has enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon.

“And Iran having nuclear weapons, I’ve believed for a long time, is a very very bad outcome — for the region and for the world,” Mullen said.

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The Iranian Gambit in Gaza

The Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip that began in late December has focused the world’s attention on the conflict between the Jewish state and the armed cadres of the Palestinian terror faction Hamas. Yet the media coverage has, for the most part, failed to provide an accurate picture of the larger geopolitical confrontation in Gaza. The conflict is viewed as simply another battle in the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinians. But in fact, the Israelis found it necessary to move against Hamas in part due to the machinations of an outside player that has long fomented discord and civil war within the Palestinian population for its own ends. That outside actor is Iran.

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Israel responds to Lebanon rocket

A rocket fired from Lebanon has lightly wounded three people in northern Israel, the Israeli army says.

Lebanese security sources said that three rockets had been fired from southern Lebanon but two had landed inside Lebanese territory.

Lebanese sources say that Israel then fired at least six artillery shells.

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Rocket from Lebanon hit Israel

At least one rocket fired from Lebanon landed in northern Israel on Saturday, lightly wounding three people and prompting Israel to respond with a barrage of artillery shells, the Israeli army said.

In Beirut, a security source, asking not to be identified, said three rockets had been fired from the area of Mansouri, south of Tire, and that Israel had responded by firing at least six artillery shells into southern Lebanon. No one was wounded.

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No victors in Gaza war

As the fighting finally ceased Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s Gazan leader, broadcast a message congratulating the Palestinian people on their “great victory”.

Outside, those Palestinians were savouring that “victory”. In neighbourhoods pulverised beyond recognition, hungry, traumatised and distraught they picked with bare hands through the rubble of their homes, searching for the decomposing corpses of relatives.

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Out of the Ruins of Gaza

During the war the Israeli army killed around 1,300 Palestinians – armed men, civilians and hundreds of children. They destroyed acres of homes and businesses.

If the damage had no justifiable and proportionate military purpose then it is classified as wanton destruction, which is a breach of the laws of war. What it also does is ratchet up the level of hatred for Israel because each pile of rubble was somebody’s home or somebody’s business.

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Israel kills Gaza militant

Israeli fire killed a Palestinian militant who was on a mission on Monday to attack an Israeli patrol along the border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the Islamic Jihad group said.

Israel’s military, revising an earlier statement, said its forces killed a gunman who tried to infiltrate through its Gaza border fence.

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Egypt seeks Gaza truce and prisoner deal

An Egyptian proposal to stabilize post-war Gaza calls for an extended truce between Israel and Hamas, a prisoner exchange and the initial opening of at least two of the enclave’s border crossings, diplomats said.

Ahead of an Israeli election on Tuesday, negotiations in Cairo have grown increasingly intense and complex. Western diplomats briefed on the talks said it was unclear whether all of the details could be worked out.

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