Tag Archives: hamas

Israeli FM questioned in bribery probe

A day after he assumed his new job, controversial Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday endured more than seven hours of questioning by police in a long-standing probe over business dealings. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said National Fraud Investigation Unit officers queried Lieberman “under warning” on suspicion of bribery, money laundering, fraud, and breach of trust

Israel says Gaza death toll lower than claimed

The Israeli Military said Thursday that the "vast majority" of Palestinians killed in the recent Gaza conflict were "terror operatives" and the number of people killed was less than Palestinian sources reported. In an e-mailed statement the Israel Defense Forces spokesman’s office claimed their figures contained the names of 1,166 Palestinians killed in the conflict, called “Operation Cast Lead.” The Israeli military said 709 of them were “identified as Hamas terror operatives, among them several from various other terror organizations.” The remaining, the statement claims, were comprised of 162 names who “have not yet been attributed to any organization.” “Furthermore, it has come to our understanding that 295 uninvolved Palestinians were killed during the operation, 89 of them under the age of 16, and 49 of them were women.” The Israeli military said it was releasing the findings to counter “false information originating from various Palestinian sources, and in order to remove any doubt regarding the number of Palestinians killed in Operation Cast Lead.” The numbers presented by the Israeli military differ sharply from those reported by Palestinian sources. At the conclusion of the fighting, the Hamas controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza had put the death toll at over 1,300, with the majority made up of non-combatants

Hamas hardens position on kidnapped soldier’s release

Israeli negotiators returned to Jerusalem for a Tuesday afternoon Cabinet meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after Hamas officials "hardened" their position over the release of an abducted soldier. “It became clear during the discussions that Hamas had hardened its position, reneged on understandings that had been formulated over the past year and raised extreme demands,” Olmert’s office said in a statement. Israeli Security Agency Director Yuval Diskin and the prime minister’s special envoy, Ofer Dekel, had been taking part in Egyptian-mediated talks in Cairo regarding the release of Gilad Shalit.

Dealing with Hamas: Can the U.S. Avoid It Much Longer?

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised the U.S. Congress on Wednesday to “work tirelessly with you for peace in the Middle East.” But Britain clearly has some ideas of its own about how to move the process forward, and those ideas clash with the orthodoxies still in place in Washington. Even as Brown spoke on Capitol Hill, his government announced that it has scrapped its boycott of Hizballah, and would hold talks with the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi’ite movement, whose militia is on its — and Washington’s — list of terrorist organizations.

Clinton visits Palestinian leaders in West Bank

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Wednesday. The sessions are the first with the Palestinian Authority leaders for the Obama administration