Gaza Strip

Hamas claimed on Monday that it was Israel who had “begged” for last week’s ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar on Friday warned Israel “not to test us again,” saying the next rocket barrage from the territory would target Tel Aviv and other central cities with a potency that would “surprise” Israel.

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said Saturday that the Israeli government knew that the truce with Palestinian terror group Hamas in the Gaza Strip would not be a popular decision, but that security chiefs were unanimous in their recommendations that this was the right course of action.

Hundreds of residents from southern communities, which were battered by recent rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, protested in Tel Aviv on Thursday against a truce reached with the Hamas terror group and called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign.

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon,  played a recording of a “Code Red” rocket siren to the media ahead of a Security Council debate on the escalation of anti-Israel terrorist violence.

TEL AVIV – The coalition hung in the balance Wednesday in the wake of Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s announcement that he was resigning over Israel’s “capitulation to terror” in agreeing to a ceasefire agreement with Gaza and his subsequent call for new elections.

The IDF Home Front Command on Tuesday night removed all restrictions on residents of southern Israel, the army said, declaring a “return to normalcy” as an uneasy reported ceasefire with the Hamas terror group appeared to hold after two days of rocket fire.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it has shot at and captured a Palestinian who approached the Gaza perimeter fence and hurled grenades into Israel.

TEL AVIV – Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal Tuesday evening, Arab media reported, after nearly 500 rockets and mortars pounded the Jewish state over the course of 24 hours.

TEL AVIV – Despite reports of a ceasefire, projectiles continued being launched at Israel from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Tuesday afternoon. 

A woman whose Ashkelon home was hit by a rocket from the Gaza Strip on Monday night described the moments of fear as the projectile came through her living room roof with an “unforgettable” blast, as some residents of southern Israel fumed over what they described as a weak Israeli response to the spiraling violence emanating from the coastal enclave.

The Israeli military deployed additional troops and tanks to the Gaza Strip border on Monday following the largest barrage of rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel from the coastal enclave in a single day.

A man was killed and two women were seriously injured after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip scored a direct hit on an apartment building in Ashkelon.

TEL AVIV – Israel is “shielding” Europe from the terror spreading from the Middle East and European nations should thus show more gratitude and less “hostility” to the Jewish state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday in Paris.

TEL AVIV – Israel’s south was pounded with a barrage of more than 80 rockets launched from the Hamas-ruling Gaza Strip Monday afternoon, injuring one man seriously and another two moderately. 

Israel came under sustained terrorist rocket and mortar attack Monday afternoon, with early reports indicating at least one man seriously injured.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Chanting “revenge” and flanked by masked gunmen in camouflage, thousands of mourners in the Gaza Strip on Monday buried seven Palestinian militants killed in an Israeli incursion as the ruling Hamas group launched a feverish security sweep across the territory.

Classes were canceled for Monday morning in Gaza border communities as five volleys of at least three rockets and other projectiles were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip.

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rushed back to Israel on Monday, hours after an Israeli army officer and seven Palestinians, including a local Hamas commander, were killed after an incursion by Israeli special forces into the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli special forces officer was killed and another was moderately wounded during a night-time operation in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the army said. The incident sparked intense clashes between the Israeli military and the Hamas terror group.

TEL AVIV – Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday warned that the IDF will not be able to withstand the number of missiles the terror group has in its possession. He also told the Palestinians not to make a deal with Israel.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has reportedly urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to accept a “graded reconciliation” with Hamas as part of a deal that would see the 82-year old take control of the Gaza Strip.

TEL AVIV – An Israeli kindergarten near the border with Gaza was evacuated Thursday morning after a bomb launched by terrorists from the Gaza Strip was found in the playground, officials said.

Israel’s top priority in dealing with the ongoing violence on Gaza is to prevent the infiltration of terrorists into Israel and to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday.

Islamic Jihad on Saturday took responsibility for the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip overnight and threatened further launches, as the Israeli military accused the Palestinian terror group of carrying out the attacks on behalf of Iran and Syria.

Israel launched a series of airstrikes overnight in response to rockets from Gaza, blaming Iran for supporting a Palestinian militant group involved in the exchange of fire.

Egypt has warned PA President Mahmoud Abbas not to impose new sanctions on the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian official in Ramallah said on Wednesday.

JERUSALEM  – Israeli warplanes hit Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip early on Thursday in response to rocket fire from the territory into southern Israel, the army said.

Israel will renew the supply of Qatari-purchased fuel into the Gaza Strip starting Wednesday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s office said Tuesday evening, following relative calm this week along the border.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Security forces of the rival Palestinian governments routinely use torture and arbitrary arrests, among other tactics, to quash dissent by peaceful activists and political rivals, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

The leaders of Hamas and Fatah have failed their people and have turned them into “beggars and street vendors who can hardly earn a living,” senior Hamas official Ahmed Yousef said on Monday.

Rocket sirens blared in Israeli communities north of the Gaza Strip on Sunday evening in what the military said was a false alarm.

TEL AVIV – Hamas has defied an Egyptian demand to cease the violent weekly border protests between the Gaza Strip and Israel, Palestinian sources said on Saturday.

A military aircraft fired toward a group of Palestinians on Saturday flying incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip into Israel, the Israeli army said.

Israel reopened the crossings into the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, allowing people and goods in and out of the coastal enclave, following a decrease in the amount of violence along the border.