De facto gov't denies shutting down Rafah tunnels
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
April 15, 2010 - 12:00am

The Ministry of the Interior in the Gaza Strip has denied reports that the Hamas-run government shut down smuggling tunnels along the Egyptian border. Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab Al-Ghussein said in a statement posted on Hamas-affiliated Web sites Wednesday that "the Palestinian government in Gaza did not issue any order to shut down tunnels along the border." The reports are rumors and nothing more, Al-Ghussein stressed.

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Hamas executes two Palestinians in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Nidal Al-Mughrabi - April 15, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas said on Thursday it executed by firing squad two Palestinians convicted by a Gaza military court in 2009 of collaborating with Israel. It was the first time that Islamist group has carried out formal executions since the it seized control of the Gaza Strip three years ago from the rival Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, which governs in the occupied West Bank. A Hamas government official confirmed the executions after the bodies of two men arrived at a Gaza hospital. The group's interior ministry said they were carried out by firing squad.

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Islamic Jihad: Hamas has secret ceasefire deal with Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
April 12, 2010 - 12:00am

De facto government police in Gaza released on Sunday a group of resistance fighters affiliated with the militant wings of Islamic Jihad and Fatah following a four-hour detention, sources within the movements said. The release was conditional, sources said, and the men were asked to promise to abstain from any resistance activity in the near future. According to a second source, the group was planning a "qualitative operation" against Israeli forces somewhere in Gaza.

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Palestinians in Gaza face new challenge -- taxes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Nidal Al-Mughrabi - April 12, 2010 - 12:00am

Hamas has begun taxing Gaza street vendors and shopkeepers, raising speculation the ruling Islamist group is in a financial crisis fuelled partly by Egypt's building of a border wall to stop smuggling tunnels. Experts said on Monday that perhaps only a few dozen of the hundreds of tunnels are still functional as a result of the steel wall being pounded deep into the ground along the 14-km (8-mile)-long frontier.

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Hamas arrests cell about to open fire on IDF
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ali Waked - April 12, 2010 - 12:00am

The Hamas government's internal security force in the Gaza Strip released a cell of gunmen Monday who had planned to open fire on an IDF force operating near the border fence. Sources from the Islamic Jihad reported to Ynet that members of the cell – made up of members of Islamic Jihad's military wing, the al-Quds Brigades, and the Nabil Massoud cell, which is one of the armed groups of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades – were released after they committed in writing not to continue these types of activities.

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US Treasury: 'PA making bold bid to curb Hamas funds'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Hilary Leila Krieger - April 9, 2010 - 12:00am

WASHINGTON – The Palestinian Authority has made significant moves to cut off the flow of funding to Hamas, according to a top US Treasury official. David Cohen, assistant treasury secretary for terrorist financing, praised the PA for taking “important steps to limit Hamas’s influence” by supervising the Palestinian banking system and charitable contributions in the West Bank and Gaza. “The Palestinian Authority has been quite courageous in its efforts to regulate the financial system,” Cohen told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Wednesday afternoon.

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Amid jail strike, Hamas urges more soldier abductions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
April 9, 2010 - 12:00am

The solution to the prisoner-swap stalemate is to capture more Israeli soldiers and force the hand of the Israeli government, Hamas leaders said Thursday. Sparked by the start of the second week of a prisoner strike, officials in Gaza are seeking to support Palestinians in Israeli custody as they demand equal treatment by prison officials.

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Hamas in Gaza takes steps to carry out executions
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by RIZEK ABDEL JAWAD - April 8, 2010 - 12:00am

Human rights activists urged Gaza's Hamas rulers Thursday not to execute Palestinians who spied for Israel, as Hamas officials prepared to resume executions following a decade-long lull. Eleven men are on death row in Gaza, six convicted by Hamas courts of murder and five of spying for Israel, said the Gaza-based Independent Commission for Human Rights. Six others have been sentenced to death in absentia.

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Four Gaza factions halt rocket fire, in bow to Hamas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff - April 6, 2010 - 12:00am

Four Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip will cease firing Qassam rockets at Israel, they announced on Monday. The move followed significant pressure from Hamas on the three smaller factions - Islamic Jihad and the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine. Hamas has controlled the territory since the summer of 2007. It failed to persuade small, break-away groups to adhere to the cease-fire. Palestinian sources said the announcedment followed a meeting Saturday of representatives of the four factions.

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Israel Mounts Air Attacks in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner - April 2, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli warplanes struck at least four times across Gaza on Friday, damaging a number of structures that the Israeli military said were sites for weapons manufacturing or storage. A workshop destroyed early Friday morning in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City. A military spokesman said the strikes were in response to a Qassam rocket fired from Gaza on Thursday that hit the Ashkelon area on Israel’s central coast. The spokesman added that nearly 20 rockets or mortars had come from Gaza during March, and more than 40 since the beginning of the year.

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