Away from UN debate, Palestinian camp is on edge
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alertnet
September 7, 2011 - 12:00am

Once again, it can be easier to find a rifle than a job in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin. Residents say occasional bursts of gunfire in its narrow streets are an economic indicator as telling as any. Many see the renewed disorder as a consequence of despair. The scene of heavy fighting in 2002 during the last Intifada, or uprising, Jenin camp today challenges the picture of a West Bank prospering under the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Western-backed and internationally-funded government.

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Israeli Strikes in Retaliation Kill 9 Gazans
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Fares Akram - August 25, 2011 - 12:00am

Nine Gazans have been killed in Israeli strikes since Wednesday night, with Israel’s southern communities withstanding 20 rockets from Gaza over the same 24-hour period. Warning sirens repeatedly sent Israelis across the south into bomb shelters, but most of the rockets landed in empty fields near the Israeli cities of Ofakim, Ashkelon and Beersheba. However, a 9-month-old baby was slightly hurt in Ashkelon when a car was hit with shrapnel.

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Gaza cease-fire tested by Israeli airstrike, Palestinian rocket fire
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Joel Greenberg - August 24, 2011 - 12:00am

A tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip was punctured Wednesday by a deadly Israeli airstrike that triggered rocket and mortar fire at Israel. After 48 hours in which air attacks were suspended, an Israeli drone strike killed Ismail Asmar, a senior member of the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group, in his car in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, according to the military and local medical officials.

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7 killed in overnight airstrikes on Gaza Strip
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 24, 2011 - 12:00am

Seven Palestinians were killed and at least 30 injured as multiple Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza overnight Wednesday. Hisham Adnan Abu Harb was killed as an airstrike hit a smuggling tunnel in Rafah, southern Gaza. Earlier, reports said that three people were unaccounted for after the Rafah airstrike. Four bodies were later pulled from rubble in the Rafah area. Hamas official Imad Muhammad Hamada had earlier said that crews were searching for the missing persons.

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Rights group: Rockets injure Palestinians inside Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 24, 2011 - 12:00am

Eight Palestinians, including two children and three women, were injured this week by rockets fired in populated areas across the Gaza Strip, a human rights group charged Wednesday. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights says a woman was seriously injured. After one incident, according to the PCHR, an ordinance disposal unit arrived at the scene and collected the rocket's shrapnel, but the civil police never showed up to investigate.

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Gaza factions agree ceasefire as overnight calm holds
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 22, 2011 - 12:00am

Reports of a Sunday evening ceasefire deal reached between factions in Gaza and Israel appeared to hold overnight Sunday, as residents paused for breath after four days of Israeli airstrikes. Israeli media and army reported that 12 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel overnight, with no injuries. But the cessation deal, described by a Hamas official as "informal", seemed to take Gaza residents safely through the night. No faction claimed rockets attacks after the deal was in place, around 9 p.m. Israel time, 8 p.m. in winter-saving time.

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Israel-Gaza violence threatens protest movement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Aron Heller - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Security has traditionally trumped all other concerns in Israel. Now some social activists fear a sudden spike of violence with the Palestinians could overwhelm a spontaneous and surprisingly strong summer-long revolt against the country's high cost of living. A deadly ambush that killed eight Israelis, and subsequent Israeli airstrikes and rocket barrages from Gaza over the weekend, have abruptly shifted the country's attention away from the economic protests that were coalescing into a serious threat to the government. Now the security situation is the center of attention again.

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Bedouin May Have Joined Attack on Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Joseph Mayton, Arieh O'Sullivan - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

As the Egyptian military began to flex its muscle in the northern Sinai on Sunday, Bedouin trial leaders said the cross-border attack on Israel that killed eight people had included Bedouins as well as Palestinians.

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Egypt sets new battle front in a war with its own Islamic hardliners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Alastair Beach - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Perched high on a sandbank overlooking the slums of Gaza, a man who calls himself Abu Nafaq points to a block of canary-yellow flats just beyond the Egyptian border fence. "That is where the Israelis bombed a few days ago," he says, referring to the Israeli bombing raid in response to last week's ambush by terrorists in southern Israel. According to the Israelis, the gunmen who murdered eight people near the Red Sea resort town of Eilat came from Gaza – possibly sneaking out through the warren of smugglers' tunnels leading into the nearby Egyptian shantytown of Rafah.

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Israel has no strategy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Nahum Barnea - (Opinion) August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

The same story repeats under all our governments: Following a terror attack, both sides embark on a chain reaction of attacks and counter-attacks. At the end of the day, the battle is over who will be firing the last rocket; who will emerge as a hero and who will be the chicken.

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