Israel rejects Qatar bid to restore diplomatic ties
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Barak Ravid - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel has rejected two proposals from Qatar to restore diplomatic relations and let Israel reopen its office in the capital of Doha. A senior source in Jerusalem said that in return for renewed diplomatic relations, the Qataris demanded that they be allowed to carry out a series of reconstruction projects in the Gaza Strip and to import the necessary construction materials. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman were unwilling to agree to this, he said.

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Homes Built as Statement Razed to Make Another
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Fares Akram - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Nidal Eid was praised by Hamas officials as an example of anti-Zionist resistance when he managed to build a house here last year despite an Israeli blockade that barred the import of any building materials. But earlier this week, his house was the first to be demolished by the Hamas government, which said it had been illegally built on public land. Bulldozers, accompanied by Hamas forces and police officers who beat residents with sticks, razed at least 25 houses, including some concrete structures here in Rafah, the southernmost city of Gaza.

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Hamas downplays Israel's threats to re-occupy Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Islamic Hamas movement downplayed on Tuesday reports of Israeli plans to re-occupy the Gaza Strip and appoint an Israeli military governor to run the coastal enclave that is now controlled by Hamas. "It's a meaningless psychological war that aims at reducing the morale of the Palestinian people and their resistance," Hamas spokesperson, Fawzi Barhoum, told Xinhua.

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Hamas executions outrage PNA, rights groups
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Saud Abu Ramadan - May 18, 2010 - 12:00am

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the human rights groups on Tuesday condemned the earlier execution of three Gaza residents who were convicted of committing homicide crimes by the deposed Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Ghassan al-Khatib, spokesman of the PNA in the West Bank, told Xinhua that the PNA condemns the execution of the three Palestinians, "these executions are illegal. The legal system in Gaza is messy."

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Report: Egypt cutting Hamas off
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Roee Nahmias - May 17, 2010 - 12:00am

New record in Hamas-Egypt tensions? Cairo has decided to cut all contact with heads of the Hamas movement, both in the Palestinian territories, and abroad, "high-ranking Egyptian officials were quoted as saying. In Monday's edition, independent paper al-Mesryoon, which is affiliated with the Egyptian opposition, reported that Cairo has decided to reject any requests by Hamas officials for entry visas to Egypt in the near future, and to freeze all channels of diplomatic and security communications with the movement.

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Fayyad’s popularity on rise in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Ali Sawafta - May 17, 2010 - 12:00am

His efforts are bearing fruit. Even some of Fayyad’s rivals admit that his stock is on the rise among Palestinians tired of leaders who have failed to deliver them statehood or prosperity. Fayyad could even be in line for higher office, they say, although the premier routinely denies such personal ambition. They acknowledge that the former World Bank economist, a political independent who is not a member of the long dominant Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), is making an impact.

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Middle East Plan B
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Boston Globe
by Sasha Polakow-Suransky - May 16, 2010 - 12:00am

“I think this is a very big deal,” President Clinton declared to a group of American Jews and Arabs after the legions of photographers left the White House grounds on Sept. 13, 1993. However, Clinton warned, it would take commitment and hard work to guarantee that the historic Israeli-Palestinian Accord signed that day would “truly be a turning point.”

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Hamas destroys dozens of homes in southern Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Rizek Abdel Jawad - May 16, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas police wielding clubs beat and pushed residents out of dozens of homes in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on Sunday before knocking the buildings down with bulldozers, residents said. Gaza's militant Hamas rulers said the homes were built illegally on government land. Newly homeless residents were furious over Palestinians on bulldozers razing Palestinian homes.

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Palestinians mark displacement in 1948 Mideast war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Rizek Abdel Jawad - May 15, 2010 - 12:00am

Bitter Palestinian rivals marched together Saturday in a rare show of unity as they marked 62 years of displacement in the war surrounding Israel's creation. Loyalists of rival groups Hamas and Fatah held Palestinian flags and a giant key symbolic of their hoped-for return as part of annual commemorations of what they call the "catastrophe," or "nakba" in Arabic. The names of the villages and towns emptied during the war were written across the key, alongside the slogan "We will return."

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Report: IDF soldiers kill elderly Palestinian near Gaza border
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
May 15, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian emergency services and witnesses said Israel Defense Forces soldiers killed one Palestinian and wounded another near the border with Gaza, Israel Radio reported on Saturday. Medical officials in Gaza said the man, who was 75 and whose body was only discovered on Saturday when it became light, had been shot several times. They added that his family had reported he had been missing for two days.

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