What has Gaza gained since Hamas won four years ago?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Michael Young - (Opinion) March 11, 2010 - 1:00am

As Israel and the Palestinian Authority prepare to resume indirect talks, through American mediation, some are insisting that the Islamist movement Hamas must be brought into the process. Hamas, the argument goes, is capable of obstructing progress in negotiations, so that only by engaging the group can the United States and the international community avoid such an outcome. The rationale is naive.

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Pointless move
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
(Opinion) March 8, 2010 - 1:00am

Hamas is reportedly banning male hairdressers from styling women’s hair in Gaza. If true, it is a sad indictment of the Islamist movement’s rule today that it has come to this. Indeed, it sometimes is very hard to recollect that Palestinians voted for Hamas not out of any sense of growing religiosity, but because the movement promised change and reform and seemed to mean it.

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Hamas slaying in Dubai ripples worldwide
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Brian Murphy - March 7, 2010 - 1:00am

If there's a signature moment in the plot to kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, it's likely his short elevator ride from the hotel lobby to Room 230. The Hamas commander and a woman hotel clerk enter the elevator and, just before the doors close, two men slip in. They look like any tourist here for the Persian Gulf winter sunshine: baggy shorts, tennis rackets, sneakers and baseball caps. Al-Mabhouh — still wearing the winter jacket he traveled in from Damascus to Dubai — barely gives them a glance.

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Hamas: PA continues political arrest campaign
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
March 5, 2010 - 1:00am

Hamas officials released a statement accusing Palestinian Authority forces of detaining three of the party's affiliates from locations across the West Bank overnight Thursday. The three were reportedly from Nablus and Hebron, although the arrests could not be independently verified by Ma'an.

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Hamas: Return to talks a betrayal of the nation
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
March 5, 2010 - 1:00am

Gaza's deputy Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) speaker Ahmad Bahar called a return to negotiations with Israel a "waste of the Palestinian cause," saying the outcomes of any talks would "not meet any standards of legitemacy." The statement on Thursday followed rumors that indirect talks with a US envoy shuttling between Israel and the PLO could start as early as Sunday, after the Arab League gave the go-ahead on Wednesday for talks within a four-month timeframe.

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Hamas denies al-Qaida-style groups operating in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
March 4, 2010 - 1:00am

Hamas authorities on Thursday denied reports that al-Qaida-style groups were operating in the Gaza Strip to shake Hamas' rule. "There is no group representing the international definition of Jihad," Hamas' Interior Minister Fatthi Hammad told Xinhua. "There were small groups that have been suppressed," he added. "The situation on the ground is still good and we still maintain order," Hammad said.

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Hamas bans men from women's hair salons
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Rizek Abdel Jawad - March 4, 2010 - 1:00am

Gaza's Islamic Hamas government on Thursday banned men from working in women's hair salons, the latest step in its campaign to impose strict Islamic customs on Gaza's 1.5 million people. Since seizing Gaza in 2007, Hamas has taken steps in that direction while avoiding a frontal assault on secularism. The majority of Gaza residents are conservative Muslims, but Hamas is under growing pressure from more radical groups to prove its fundamentalist credentials by imposing ever harsher edicts. The latest measure irked one of the victims of the ban.

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Israel allows less than quarter of needs into Gaza: official
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
March 4, 2010 - 1:00am

Israel allows in only less than quarter of goods the Gaza Strip needs, a Palestinian official said Thursday following a call by a senior UN official to relax sanctions on the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave. "Only 15 percent of Gaza's basic needs are allowed in through one crossing that operates on partial capacity," said Jamal El- Khodary, chief of a public anti-siege committee in Gaza.

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How to handle Hamas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Adam Ingram - (Opinion) March 4, 2010 - 1:00am

The recent assassination of a founder of Hamas' armed wing, allegedly involved in the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, has strained relations between Britain and Israel, but is also a sad reminder of the wider repercussions of Hamas' control of the Gaza Strip. If Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab world are to find a way to resolve the Middle East conflict, it must be on the basis of politics, diplomacy and a respect for human life.

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Hamas bans men from women's hair salons
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
March 4, 2010 - 1:00am

Gaza's Islamic Hamas government on Thursday banned men from working in women's hair salons, the latest step in its campaign to impose strict Islamic customs on Gaza's 1.5 million people. Since seizing Gaza in 2007, Hamas has taken steps in that direction while avoiding a frontal assault on secularism. The majority of Gaza residents are conservative Muslims, but Hamas is under growing pressure from more radical groups to prove its fundamentalist credentials by imposing ever harsher edicts. The latest measure irked one of the victims of the ban.

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