BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Hamas movement has allegedly pulled back hundreds of gunmen previously deployed along the borders with Israel in order to prevent other Palestinian factions from firing homemade rockets at Israeli towns, according to an Israeli report released on Sunday. The Hebrew language news site Walla reported on Sunday that according to Palestinian sources Hamas had pulled back 600 gunmen who had been deployed in border areas to maintain a ceasefire with Israel by preventing gunmen from other militant factions from firing rockets. The reported move comes a day after Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon threatened to launch attacks against the Gaza Strip if rockets continued to be launched towards the Israel, saying that they would pay a "heavy price." Hamas' move gives other Palestinian factions a green light to fire rockets at Israeli targets across the border, according to Walla. The move allegedly came in response to an Israeli airstrike on Thu...

Abdulrahman Murad is a Gaza-based blogger and freelance journalist. His writings have appeared on Middle East Monitor, Mondoweiss, and Al-RAY Media. Follow him on Twitter and on his blog. Gazans fear another Israeli military offensive is imminent, as Israel flexes its military muscle and Egypt joins the band, beating the drums of war. A rush to exercise In November 2013, the Israeli military for the first time ever hosted a multinational military exercise; Greece, the US and Italy arrived to carry out the Blue Flag 2013 drill in the Negev simulating a ground incursion into Gaza. The move was described as the largest-ever aerial maneuver shared by international forces. A similar drill was also jointly organized by Israel and the US in July 2013. Mounting threats I have received two inquiries from oversees friends during the past few days regarding the high-pitch Israeli threats against Gaza, and Hamas in particular. The last one was asking for a confirmation of Israeli TV ch...

Israeli soldiers shot and wounded 15 Palestinians near the West Bank town of Ramallah during a protest Friday over the killing of a teenager, Palestinian medics and security sources said. In Gaza, meanwhile, medics said five more Palestinians were wounded by Israeli army gunfire near the border fence with Israel. The sources said the Palestinians in the West Bank were hit by live rounds on the outskirts of Jalazun refugee camp and hospitalised in Ramallah, including one with serious injuries. Hundreds of Palestinians took part in the protest, many of them hurling rocks at the soldiers. The demonstration was called to protest at the Israeli army's killing on Wednesday of Mohammed Mubarak, a 19-year-old from Jalazun working on a project funded by USAID and son of the camp's locally elected leader. The army said he was shot dead near a Jewish settlement outside Ramallah after opening fire on them, but witnesses insisted he was unarmed. Palestinian housing and publ...

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Seven Palestinians were injured early Friday when Israeli warplanes launched a series of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, a Ma'an reporter said. Israeli aircraft attacked a site in northwest Gaza, lightly wounding a child and damaging a number of houses. Additionally, two missiles targeted an abandoned building near Beisan park in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, injuring civilians. Israeli missiles also struck near a mosque north of Rafah in the southern Gaza strip, injuring four people. Also in Rafah, Israeli aircraft targeted a military site of al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing, without causing injuries. The injured were taken to hospitals, where medics described their wounds as light to moderate. Israel's army said in a statement that in response to rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, "aircrafts targeted overnight a terror activity site and a weapon manufacturing facility in the northern Gaza strip and a weapon storage facili...

Residents of Tel Aviv will wake up in February to discover a huge hourglass full of polluted water standing in the city's central Rabin Square. The installation is the centrepiece of a campaign launched by the Friends of the Earth Middle East under the headline: Water Can't Wait, designed to draw Israelis' attention to an approaching water crisis – particularly in the Gaza Strip. Gidon Bromberg, director of FoE in Tel Aviv, said the environment was being held hostage by the logjam in the Middle East peace process and internal Palestinian disputes between Hamas and Fatah. As the politicians dawdle, fresh drinking water is running out for the 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza. Last November, the World Bank completed construction of a wastewater treatment plant designed to prevent pollution of the underground aquifer that provides fresh water to 400,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip, but it stands idle, silenced by political wrangling. Gaza is dependent on Israel for mos...

LOS ANGELES (Ma'an) -- Actress Scarlett Johansson has stepped down as an ambassador for global charity Oxfam after clashing with the group over her support for a company operating in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, The Associated Press reported. Johansson's spokesman said Wednesday that the actress had a "fundamental difference" with Oxfam, a global humanitarian charity, over their opposition to trade from Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law, AP said. The actress, who has worked with Oxfam for eight years, signed an agreement in January with SodaStream International Ltd to be a global ambassador for the company and is set to appear in an advertisement during the US Super Bowl on Feb. 2. The company operates a large factory in an industrial zone of the illegal settlement of Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem. more

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian man near the Ramallah village of Ein Siniya on Wednesday. A Ma'an reporter identified the victim as Muhammad Mahmoud Mubarak, 22, from al-Jalazun refugee camp. Israeli forces in the area denied Palestinian ambulances access to the body before medics were eventually allowed to transfer the man to Ramallah Medical Complex. A Palestinian official in the military liaison department told Ma'an that Mubarak was shot dead by a soldier positioned in a military watchtower. "A Palestinian terrorist opened fire at an IDF (army) post near Ofra. The soldiers responded immediately in order to eliminate the imminent threat to their lives and fired towards the terrorist, identifying a hit," Israel's army said. Eyewitnesses in the area told Ma'an that Mubarak was a laborer working with the al-Tarifi company on a USAID funded project to refurbish the main road in Ein Siniya. Earlier, he had been direc...

“If only I could make this message go viral,” Scarlett Johansson muses in her new advertisement for SodaStream, the Israeli home fizzy-drink dispenser company that helps the environment, she says, by using “less sugar, less bottles”. Ms Johansson’s new brand ambassador role and advert for SodaStream, launched online earlier this month and due to air during next Sunday’s Super Bowl, has indeed now gone viral – but in ways neither the husky-voiced Hollywood actress nor the Nasdaq-listed company probably imagined. The international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has seized on Ms Johansson and her association with SodaStream as a rare opportunity to add some unpaid star wattage to their long-running campaign to isolate Israel economically until it withdraws from occupied Palestinian land. SodaStream makes some of its dispensers, CO2 cylinders and bottles at a former munitions factory in the Mishor Adumim industrial zone, outside Jerusalem, in one of Israel’s sprawling se...

On Monday, 20th January, at about 6:00 am, Yousef Amin Abo Warda (age 18) and his cousin Ahmad Kamal Abo Warda (age 16) left their house to go fishing in a small boat without an engine. Around 7:30 am they were fishing in front of the al-Waha area, in the northern Gaza Strip, and sank their fishing nets about three kilometers, or 1.6 nautical miles, offshore. The arrest Yousef said two large Israeli gunboats approached the fishing boats. While other fishermen were able to escape, for Yousef and Ahmad it was impossible, as their boat had no engine and was made heavy seawater seeping through a hole. “Soldiers from one of the gunboats began shooting into the water, while the second gunboat quickly turned around us to create waves,” Yousef said. The soldiers, as they usually do when they want to arrest fishermen, asked the two young Palestinians to undress, dive into the water and swim to the Israeli ship. “I tried to get closer to their ship by swimming, but the ship moved away, so ...

By Hazem in Rafah Education in Palestine is considered among the best in the Arab world. This can be seen in the the low rates of illiterate people and the commitment of Palestinians towards pursuing their education goals. It can also be seen in the number of Palestinians who work in prestigious jobs. However, the difficult situation in Gaza has its effect on the scoring rate for pupils in the schools because children have to work in the hard jobs to help their families secure desperately needed things; it is an early end for their childhood. What does the education system look like and how can we improve it? We can bring about changes for the better by making better use of computers in the education process - making education more interactive and bringing it closer to the realities of pupils' environment and sensibilities. We should supply schools with more computers and other tools to implement interactive lessons alongside the traditional teaching approach the pupils rec...

On the 18th January 2013 at 3.20pm 15 year old Saleh Elamareen was standing outside a youth centre with a group of friends in Aida refugee camp, Bethlehem, when he was shot in the head with a suspected dumdum bullet, fired by an Israeli soldier. After being rushed to the nearby Beit Jala Government hospital, where doctors treating him said he was close to death, he then was transferred to an Israeli Hadassah. The Israeli hospital reportedly claimed he was stable, but almost exactly a year ago, 5 days after he was shot, his death was officially announced and his body returned to the West Bank. He had suffered large intracranial bleeding and the CT scan obtained shows the shattered bullet still in his skull. Two doctors who treated Saleh claimed the bullet that hit him was likely to be a dumdum bullet, which expands after impact and is illegal under international law. A third doctor claimed it was definitely a dumdum bullet. Dumdum bullets are internationally outlawed due to their de...

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Monday that his government will allow 120 Fatah members to return to the Gaza Strip in order to push the reconciliation process forward. "The reconciliation file is moving forward in the presence of the convergence of wills, in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank," said Mr Haniyeh in a statement. "This is to aid reconciliation and putting an end to the political division." The prime minister added that the arrangements need to be such that Hamas and Fatah can complete the reconciliation process "in the right way", noting that the government's actions are evidence of its intentions in this respect. "We will not retreat from achieving this," he insisted. He pointed out the need to proceed with reconciliation in parallel to the student and trade union elections and the re-formation of the municipal councils by a national consensus as a transitional phase. "Communal and political reconciliation is ...

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli bulldozers escorted by military vehicles entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, violating the coastal enclave's borders and destroying agricultural land nearby. Eyewitnesses told a Ma'an reporter that bulldozers violated the border near Abasan east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip in order to level agricultural land. Eyewitnesses added that Israeli troops escorted the bulldozers and fired smoke bombs in order to obscure locals' vision of the operation. An Israeli army spokeswoman did not immediately return calls seeking comment. more

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli soldiers on Monday shot and injured a Palestinian man east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, a medical official said. Spokesman for Gaza's Ministry of Health, Ashraf al-Qidra, told Ma'an that a 34-year-old man was shot in the chest by Israeli fire. The man, who was not identified, is in a critical condition. Shortly before the man was shot Israeli forces opened fire indiscriminately after an explosion rocked the central border area as an Israeli military jeep was passing by. A large group of Israeli troops were seen in the area and fired smoke bombs in order to evacuate the jeep, witnesses said. more

JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces demolished a 3-storey building under construction in East Jerusalem on Monday, a local official said. Muhammad Abu al-Hummus, a local committee official, told Ma'an that Israeli forces escorted bulldozers to the al-Isawiya neighborhood at around 6 a.m. and demolished a three-floor building belonging to Abdul-Hayy Dari. Israeli forces closed the main roads in the neighborhood during the demolition, preventing students and employees access to their schools and work places. Inspectors from Israel's Jerusalem municipality toured the neighborhood last week and took photos of several buildings. Israel destroyed more than 500 Palestinian properties in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2013, displacing over 850 people, according to UN figures. more

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli media reported on Sunday that Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon had approved plans to allow construction material into the Gaza Strip in order to help repair buildings destroyed in December's severe winter storm. Israeli news site Ynet said that the plan to allow 1,000 tons of cement and "construction materials" into the besieged coastal enclave followed coordination between Israeli officials, the Palestinian Authority, and officials from the international community. The decision was taken by the Defense Minister and its implemented will be directed by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Eitan Dangot. It was not clear when the transfer would take place. more

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli warships early Saturday fired at Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of Gaza City, fishermen told Ma'an. The fishermen said Israeli ships fired machine guns at them, and that many were forced to sail back to shore. No injuries were reported. An army spokeswoman told Ma'an that an Israeli navy soldier identified a Palestinian boat outside of its "designated fishing zone." After calling on the boat to stop, the Israeli ship "fired in its vicinity to halt the vessel's progress," the spokeswoman said. Then the ship returned to its "designated" area, she said. Palestinian fishermen are only allowed to go three nautical miles from Gaza's shore, even though Israeli-Palestinian agreements previously settled on 20 nautical miles. more

GAZA STRIP (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces shot dead one Palestinian and injured another on Friday during a protest east of Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip. Spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health Ashraf al-Qidra, said that 20-year-old Bilal Samer Oweidah died after being shot dead in the chest by Israeli forces near the border. Owiedah was among a group of Palestinians who had gathered near the border to protest the buffer zone imposed by Israel, al-Qidra said. Another Palestinian was moderately injured when Israeli forces opened fire on the protesters, he said. Locals said that Oweidah was taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. more

The fifth anniversary of Israel's 'Cast lead' war on Gaza was commemorated last weekend. Below we reproduce an article sent to iGaza by Hazem, an English translator who lives in Rafah. It was written during Israel's most recent war on the people of Gaza - the misnamed 'Pillar of Defense' in 2012. Since witnessing an airstrike at very close quarters Hazem has been receiving medical treatment for post-traumatic stress. What is the life of a Gazan compared to those living outside? We cannot concentrate on our daily life with the buzzing of the drones and the shaking from powerful airstrikes. The fear filled our life. The ignorance of those living in the western countries, they have everything they need easily secured for them. Today, we woke up to the sounds of the airstrikes. We could barely steal a few hours of sleep. I’m a student in a community college here in Gaza. It is called UCAS, the Community College of Applied Sciences. I will major in secretarial...

MOSCOW (AFP) - Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas sought on Thursday to secure a billion-dollar Gaza energy deal during talks with Russian leaders aimed at restoring warmer ties between the two Soviet-era allies. Abbas and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were due to sign an intergovernmental agreement that reports said included a $1.0-billion (730-million-euro) natural gas project in the Gaza section of the Mediterranean Sea. The state ITAR-TASS news agency said Russia's natural gas giant Gazprom hoped to produce 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas at the site. The report added that Russia's Technopromexport engineering firm was also considering a small oil development project near the West Bank city of Ramallah. more