Palestina

The smuggling of weapons, ammunition and drugs through tunnels from Egypt into the Gaza Strip has dropped significantly since the Islamist movement Hamas took control in June, Egyptian military officials said.

A 15-year-old Egyptian boy died on Tuesday of gunshot wounds sustained during anti-government protests between Sinai Bedouin and Egyptian police a day earlier near the border with the Gaza Strip, his father said.

An Israeli parliament committee passed a measure on Monday that would strip many post-office perks from disgraced former president Moshe Katsav, embroiled in a sex scandal. The Knesset finance committee voted to strip privileges accorded to former presidents, prime ministers, ministers and magistrates who have been convicted of moral turpitude …

Israel launched an air strike on Monday against a vehicle in the central Gaza Strip, wounding seven people, three of them activists, medics said.

JORDAN ON MONDAY took part in the meeting of the Arab League to discuss the efforts of the league’s ministerial committee tasked with rallying support for the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.

Israel said on Sunday it cut fuel supplies to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, increasing pressure on the Islamist group after it seized control of the impoverished territory.

The Bush administration will ask Congress to expand multibillion-dollar aid and weapons sales packages to “friendly” nations in the Middle East, partly to counteract Iran, senior officials said Friday.

Israel allowed around 100 Palestinians stranded for weeks in Egypt to return to the Gaza Strip through the Jewish state on Sunday, the first of some 600 expected to return home in the coming days.

JORDAN ON SUNDAY said it backs the caretaker government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to bring the security situation in the Palestinian lands under control.

Bulgaria rejected a formal Libyan protest Thursday (July 26th) against President Georgi Parvanov’s decision to pardon five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor released from life imprisonment in the North African country earlier this week.