Egypt and Israel are engaged in a war of words over a possible ceasefire as Hamas continues to attack Israeli civilians and Israel retaliates. Hamas also is reportedly divided over terms of a truce, which its officials have insisted include Israel’s removing the maritime embargo, which is designed to prevent or at least limit
Egypt’s cabinet on Wednesday approved the ending of subsidies on 95-octane gasoline and said it would set quotas for the sale of other subsidized fuel from April, the planning minister said. The announcement follows a preliminary deal reached with the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday for a $4.8 billion loan to support the state’s
The building housing AFP's Gaza City office was hit in an Israeli air strike on Tuesday night, an AFP photographer said. The photographer, Mahmud Hams, who was in the fourth-floor office at the time and was unharmed, said no AFP staff were hurt in the attack. He said at least three rockets appeared to
The Israeli army gave Gaza City residents leaflets ordering them to evacuate “immediately,” heightening fears that a ground invasion might be imminent. The orders came after an Israeli air strike on Gaza killed at least five people on Tuesday, as a delegation of Arab ministers arrived in the territory, the Hamas health ministry said.
Earlier this week, Iran and Turkey accused Israel of committing “war crimes” after denying to consider the Israeli airstrike to be used for self-defense. AFP reported Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday condemning Israel of “ethnic cleansing” towards Palestinians. “Israel is committing ethnic cleansing by ignoring peace in this region and
IAF aircraft struck the branch of the National Islamic Bank in Gaza on Monday night, the Al Jazeera network reported. According to the report, four people were wounded in the airstrike, part of the IDF’s Operation Pillar of Defense. Hamas reportedly uses the bank, which opened in the area in 2009, to pay
A Christian pro-Israel group has kicked off an online campaign demanding that microblogging site Twitter ban members of Hamas from using the service. The group, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), hoped to drum up support from more than its 1 million members amid an ongoing deadly conflict between Israel and Palestinians. The latest
SECULARIST Ibn Warraq explains that the reason he wrote Why I am not a Muslim, is “first and foremost an assertion of my right to criticize everything and anything in Islam-even to make errors, and to satirize. “Muslims and non-Muslims have the right to critically examine the sources, the history, and dogma of Islam.” Are
IDF planes on Monday targeted and eliminated another four senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. The four were eliminated as part of the IDF's efforts to dismantle the Hamas terror infrastructure in Gaza, and to restore calm and quiet to southern Israel, the army said in a statement. The four were eliminated in a
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Cabinet Israel is ready to "significantly expand" its operation against terrorists in Hamas-controlled Gaza, but United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is pressing for a truce. "The army is prepared to significantly expand the operation," Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. "The soldiers are
