Gaza

Extreme privation did not prevent tens of thousands of defiant supporters in Gaza this week from celebrating Hamas's founding.

A year-and-a-half later, after a short-lived spell in coalition with Fatah, Hamas violently took over the Gaza Strip.

The killings came just a few days after an Israeli army incursion into Gaza that killed at least 110 Palestinians.

Left unsettled was an issue at the heart of the conflict -- Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.

It is true that Israel has put up with the rockets from Gaza for a long time. But it may have been able to stop the rockets another way.

In his comments at the White House he made clear once again that he believes Hamas is using the people of Gaza to achieve militant ends.

I meet him in a hotel bar in Scotland, as part of his European tour to promote his new book, 'The Punishment of Gaza'.

Mr Abbas , sitting in the West Bank, did not declare a state of emergency until Hamas militants were ransacking his Gaza home.

Rafah's location on the Egyptian border makes it a chief supply route for Gaza--and a key target in the current Israel-Gaza conflict.

Gaza's 1. 5m people remain besieged, generally unable to leave, and with imports restricted to minimal amounts of staple food and fuel.

Security officials said the operation is likely to go on for several days, but claim the objective is not to reoccupy Gaza.

The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus during the assault on Gaza, but aid agencies say they have no doubt it has been used.

The president said the humanitarian situation in Gaza is an area of concern to all.

"We have been waiting for weeks for permission to leave Gaza for the cardiac surgery she needs, " says the child's father, Fayez Al-Tabsh.

But he said the ship is fully prepared to sail to the Gaza Strip.

An Irish-owned ship that was trying to break through the Israeli blockade of Gaza has been diverted to the Port of Ashdod.

But like many other patients in Gaza he had been made to leave an overcrowded hospital to make way for the dying.

Palestinian demonstrators protesting the Israeli military incursion in Gaza clashed with the police outside the Israeli Embassy in London.

At least five Palestinians have been killed and several wounded in an Israeli air attack on Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

He was making his way in broad daylight through the tattered streets of Gaza City when his sedan turned into a fireball.

All that was backed by an offer of renewed European help to oversee security at Rafah, Gaza's border crossing into Egypt.

Israeli officials have said the Gaza border will remain closed to all but humanitarian supplies until the rocket attacks completely stop.

Rocket attacks have been rare since Israel's massive three-week assault on Gaza a year and a half ago.

An ICRC report said the territory's economy and infrastructure had collapsed since the Israeli military offensive in Gaza six months ago.

Hamas did not allow Fatah delegates from Gaza to attend the congress, although they were able to vote by telephone.

Both husband and wife say despite everything it was worth it to put the Gaza blockade back in the headlines.

She said the process of peace must start with finding a solution to the Gaza conflict.

But a year later the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control of Gaza and stepped up rocket attacks across the border.

To assert the right to retaliate against Hamas is not to say that it is just, or wise, to shell large swathes of Gaza.

If you just say the flash in the sky, that was a rocket coming out of Gaza that was just intercepted right now.

One of them, Islamic Jihad, said the bomber entered Israel from Jordan. Alan Johnston reports from Gaza.

He did not answer directly, but he said Hamas militants must stop rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.

On the other side of the ledger, the Israeli invasion of Gaza has led to a rupture in the long-standing relationship with Israel.

"I understand Israel's desire to protect itself, and that the situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas, " said Mr. Bush.

"He is like the invisible man in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank, and his leadership is disappearing before our eyes, " he said.

Ban visited Gaza on Tuesday. He said he wants to show his respect and concern for the injured and dead.

And in Gaza, officials say air strikes have killed at least 130 Palestinians since the conflict began a week ago.

Wednesday, Mr. Abbas initially said he would not resume the negotiations unless a cease-fire went into effect in Gaza.

It sailed from Greece six weeks after Israeli commandos intercepted an aid flotilla trying to break the Gaza blockade.

Doctors at Gaza hospitals say that at least one-fifth of the victims are children and a large number of women are among the dead.

But even in the event of Israel "winning" in Gaza, a hundred years of war suggest that the Palestinians cannot be silenced by brute force.

Egypt condemned the air strikes as well, and said it would open its border with Gaza to allow some of the wounded to be brought out.

But any cease-fire must have conditions in it so that Hamas does not use Gaza as a place from which to launch rockets, " he said. "

Israel initially launched air strikes just over a week ago, pounding targets it said were linked to Hamas and its infrastructure in Gaza.

He said a team of Red Cross war surgeons has been allowed to enter Gaza to assist doctors treating the wounded at the main Shifa hospital.

The current operation in Gaza won't do much to ease these worries or to address Israel's longer-term security needs.

And at least one of these women in a Gaza backyard wants to follow in her deadly footsteps.

He says the civilians are trying to break the embargo to bring relief to people in Gaza and he hopes there will not be any tension.

USAID has signed grant agreements with six nongovernmental organizations with which it has worked previously in the West Bank and Gaza.

However, a statement from the ruling Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip praised the attack, saying it would not be the last.

A year later, it bloodily ousted Fatah from the Gaza Strip, the smaller chunk of a proposed Palestinian state.

Palestinians ran toward the home of a Hamas military leader after it was hit by an Israeli missile strike in Beit Lahia in Gaza.

U. N. spokesman , Christopher Gunness said the organization had no choice but to suspend operations in Gaza .

Rather than withdraw from Gaza, where the fighting has so far been inconclusive, Israel is now poised to send in units of reservists .

But it really must be a solution this time that does not allow Hamas to use Gaza as a launching pad against Israeli cities.

Monday, Israel's defense minister said the nation was in an "all-out war" with Hamas, which rules Gaza.

The rally shows that Hamas remains firmly in control of Gaza after seizing power a year and a half ago.

You juxtapose that in terms of the humanitarian aspect coupled with the daily airstrikes and you get a very explosive situation in Gaza.

A year and a half after its election win, Hamas violently evicted Mr Abbas's Fatah from the Gaza Strip.

UN investigators are beginning a week-long meeting in Geneva, ahead of a mission to Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Armoured units stayed on the Gaza border, poised to go back in, the army said, if Hamas resumed its firing of rockets across the border.

Hamas said it would hold fire for a week to give Israel time to withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip.

A collection of musicians from across Europe, known as the Orchestra for Gaza, performed a peace concert, opening with a work by Mozart.

People were logging in and feeling so energized to see Gaza trending already, so they boosted with great tweets.

During Israel's Gaza war this year al-Jazeera broadcast the sort of unedited footage that most stations deem too gruesome to air.

The prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas man, seems to be backing those who want to curb his unruly interior minister.

When Yasser Arafat returned to Gaza in 1994 to set up the Palestinian Authority, he brought a sense of order, security and hope.

The United Nations is to distribute the aid seized by the Israeli navy from a flotilla of ships that tried to break the Gaza blockade.

A year ago Israeli aircraft destroyed a convoy in eastern Sudan that it said was carrying Iranian arms to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

There might be recipes in The Gaza Kitchen, but "this is not just a cookbook, " says el-Haddad firmly.

On my return, I scour Gaza for evidence that anything has changed for the better in the months since the war ended.

Permanent separation between a chaotic, violent Gaza Strip and a more prosperous West Bank seems a real possibility.

Palestinian flag flutters in the wind while the sun sets behind the skyline of Gaza city Wednesday.

The Dignity was carrying 16 passengers and crew who were trying to reach Gaza through an Israeli blockade of the territory.

One Hamas spokesman in Gaza said the group was open to another ceasefire, but wanted Israel's economic blockade lifted.

Just as the world was opening up to Gaza, Hamas hardliners are closing it down.

The White House is urging Hamas to agree to a ceasefire with Israel as a first step in halting the current Israeli air assault on Gaza.

A return to the negotiating table would not be in the interest of the rival Palestinian militant group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip.

In Lebanon three years ago, and today in Gaza, Hizbullah and Hamas seem to have invented a new military doctrine.

Turkey for more than a year has mediated between Tel Aviv and Damascus. But efforts collapsed with the Israeli attack on Gaza.

Israeli army officials said they were unaware of any shooting at the Erez border crossing, which links Israel and the Gaza Strip.

calling for a single state on all the land encompassing Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, would be wrong-footed.

The infighting is some of the most serious since Hamas routed Fatah forces in the Gaza civil war a year ago.

For her, Gaza is part of the land that God promised the Jews.

But, Hamas has remained defiant, warning that it would turn Gaza into a graveyard for the Israelis.

In reality, far from being any kind of peacemaker, Tony Blair is effectively one of the architects of Israel's war in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have declared a ceasefire and say they're giving Israeli forces one week to leave the territory.

He said all the roads are blocked and Egyptian security forces are making Palestinians return to Gaza.

The Islamic militant group Hamas, that rules Gaza, said the new ceasefire was requested by Egyptian mediators.

The Gaza Strip is unusual in being a densely settled area not recognized as a de jure part of any extant country.

Amalric withdrew his Templar garrison from Gaza to assist him in defending Darum, but Saladin evaded their force and fell on Gaza instead.

The next day, I was stretching in the trees inside Gaza when I heard Delilah asking Samson what made him so strong.

The United States is continuing diplomatic contacts for a Gaza cease-fire despite Israel's rejection of a French-proposed 48-hour truce.

At least in Gaza, which Israel has under its thumb, the captive soldier is unlikely to be moved.

Egypt is trying to mediate a long term ceasefire between Israel and the Islamic militant group Hamas which rules Gaza.

He said if Israel launches deadly air strikes on Gaza, the Islamic Jihad will retaliate by the same measure.

"There is one authority, one law and one legitimate gun in all areas of our homeland, in the West Bank and Gaza, " he said later.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Israeli assault on Gaza will only bring more violence.

Among the targets have been the interior ministry, intelligence headquarters and underground tunnels between Gaza and neighboring Egypt.

"The ship is sailing to Gaza and nowhere else, " he said.

But the squeeze on Gaza has led to what Israel wanted to avoid: co-operation between Hamas and its rival party, Fatah.

They said it would not end quickly but that the objective was not to reoccupy Gaza or topple Hamas.

But since Israel imposed the blockade he has not been allowed to import the equipment to Gaza. It is stuck in a warehouse in Israel.

A year later, in Gaza, Hamas violently ousted Fatah, its secular rival that had long ruled the Palestinian roost.

"Within two years, you'll be able to drive all the way from Gaza to Morocco, " predicts another Hamas minister.

Obama also rejected a push by the Palestinians for U. N. recognition of a state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem late this year.

Turkey was negotiating with Egyptian officials over whether Mr. Erdogan should also cross into Gaza, he said.

The truce calls for Palestinian militants to stop firing rockets at Israel, and for Israel to open crossings into Gaza.

If Hamas holds its fire, the military "will weigh pulling out of Gaza at a time that befits us" , Olmert said.

Eighty kilometers away from Jerusalem, in the Gaza Strip, a new round of Israeli air strikes killed at least two Palestinians.

Efforts should be kept up to persuade Hamas to accept a two-state deal and to stop rockets being fired from Gaza into Israeli towns.

The past week has seen some of the most serious violence in and around Gaza since the end of Operation Cast Lead.

We hope that the Israeli authorities would not ban the ship from entering the port of Gaza.

Many Western diplomats argue that it was a mistake for the Turks to get so closely involved in efforts to lift Israel's blockade of Gaza.

We hope this facilitation by our Egyptian brothers will improve travel and will allow everyone to leave Gaza.

She says the best way for that to happen is for Hamas and other Palestinian militants in Gaza to stop firing rockets at southern Israel.

He seems to want to continue to squeeze the Gaza Strip until its elected government, run by the Islamist movement, Hamas, is toppled.

he noted then, stoically, that the Israelis who then ruled Gaza did not trouble to intervene.

Hamas is strong in the West Bank as well as Gaza and could easily blow up any deal it did not like.

After those twenty years of peace, I was resting on a tree near the Border of Israel at Philistia when I saw Samson in Gaza.

I am not sure whether anyone in Israel actually believes that the scenes of carnage in Gaza will induce such a response; no one else does.

"Relief is needed for the desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza, " he said.

The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Philistines, before that Pharaoh smote Gaza.

The nearly 300-page report concluded Israel's enforcement of the Gaza blockade did not violate international law.

Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, recently boasted it had killed two Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

Earlier, the armed wing of Hamas, which controls Gaza, said it had fired several rockets towards Israel.

I thought most of what passed for art in Gaza wasn't very good, truth be told, but quality seemed beside the point.

He was asked if he thought the Israeli assault on Gaza might end by Inauguration Day.

"Gaza has to feel our nightmare, " said a waitress, and went back to serving revelers at a party after the film.

He says the captain told him unequivocally the ship is sailing to Gaza.

Hamas denied it was responsible and said it would defend Gaza with "all its strength" .

He said Hamas has declared a national holiday for Tuesday and is planning a big celebration in Gaza to welcome the prisoners home.

The Israeli brass is anxious not to leave Gaza to become what chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon calls "Hamasland" .

At least four people have been killed as rival Palestinian factions battled today in Gaza.

A large number of Israeli troops are massed along the border, leading to speculation there may be a ground incursion into Gaza.

It has burrowed its way out of Israel's siege, with a web of tunnels from Gaza into Egypt.

The body of an Islamic Jihad militant, who was killed during Israeli air strikes, is lifted up by mourners during his funeral in Gaza City.

In Damascus, Hamas announced that the six-month-old Gaza truce with Israel would not be renewed when it expires on Friday.

Israel and the U. S. have urged the flotilla not to violate the Gaza blockade, warning that the mission is dangerous and provocative.

United Nations worker ran out of a warehouse in Gaza City after it was hit by Israeli forces.

Again, if people are not able to enter Gaza to repair equipment, therefore, equipment must be re-bought new.

hinted Israel would be prepared to go to intercept a humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian Gaza Strip fleet.

The Israeli attack on Gaza is likely to bring to the fore political trends that up to now have remained just below the parapet of influence.

Israel responded with air strikes on three Gaza smuggling tunnels. At least two Palestinians were killed.

The Israeli military says it will briefly halt operations in Gaza for a few hours a day to allow in humanitarian aid and fuel.

At least nine missiles were fired into Israel by small militant groups in Gaza, sometimes called Salafist jihad is.

Not everyone finds it so easy to identify with Gaza's population.

The Israeli navy shot and killed four members of a militant Palestinian group off the coast of the Gaza Strip.

Protesters light candles spelling out the word 'Gaza' during a demonstration in Dubai.

Many observers say that as long as the West Bank and Gaza remain divided, the creation of a Palestinian state will be impossible.

He says the latest events in Gaza may push him to vote for one of the right-wing parties.

That is at least one lesson to come out of the Gaza fiasco.

And Gaza, remember, is only one item in a mighty catalogue of misery, whose entries are inscribed in tears.

A restive Gaza, belching out rockets and swallowing up soldiers, is not a good advertisement for a repeat exercise in the West Bank.

In Gaza, Jamal al Khudari, who heads the Palestinian Committee for Lifting the Siege, said the destination is clear.

Rather than government and Gaza and patriarchy, this week's roundup will tackle a subject of a different kind - the subject of women.

On the 31 December, the Gaza Freedom March is taking place to mark a year passing since Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli attack on Gaza.

Hamas is being drawn closer inside the Iranian orbit and is more likely to take over the West Bank than lose its own base in Gaza.

Mr. Netanyahu told his Cabinet that the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip in 2005 did not bring peace or security.

The Gaza economy is still in a dire state, and ongoing travel restrictions meant the comforts of home and kitchen are as central as ever.

With bombs whistling down on Gaza as I write, that seems a little premature.

It has extended Egypt's state of emergency to the Gaza border, and arrested a senior Hamas commander passing through Cairo airport.

He said Egypt has allowed aid supplies into Gaza, and also supplied it with electricity.

Rice also called President-elect Barack Obama on Monday to brief him on Gaza diplomacy.

Israeli forces boarded the catamaran Tuesday off the coast of Gaza and forced it to head toward the southern Israeli port of Ashdod.

Mr. Mubarak said Egypt would not fully open its border with Gaza unless the Palestinian Authority is in control.

Israel is holding out for ceasefire terms that would guarantee an end to arms smuggling across or under Gaza's border with Egypt.

Israel's assault in January on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip has failed to blot Hamas out of the equation.

The statement did not mention Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza.

Flares fired by Israeli forces light up the sky above the northern Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian government has also ordered an underground barrier to be built along the border with Gaza, to block the tunnels.

The spokesman said Rice has no travel plans in connection with the Gaza crisis.

So far, in a fog thickened by Israel's refusal to allow foreign reporters into Gaza, the evidence is mixed (see article).

It was one of the worst nights that we have ever been in Gaza City, it was bombardment all night long, and in the morning it increased.

My colleague Yasser has been organising water tankers to distribute water across North Gaza and Gaza City in the last few days.

All told, it is questionable whether the governing parties will sustain their assertion that the Gaza operation was a brilliant success.

The father of seven toured Gaza City for hours trying to buy bread for his hungry children back home.

Israeli forces have now withdrawn after having been back in action in Gaza, but said they would return if they were attacked.

Israel launched the ground offensive on the Gaza strip Saturday after a week of air attacks.

After three years of reliance on underground smuggling from Egypt, Gaza's merchants are again buying Israeli.

He said Israel was justified in taking action against Hamas militants in Gaza.

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Gaza, said the construction of such walls "paint a grim picture" for the people in Gaza.

How can Israel trust that the land it vacates is not used, as Gaza has been, as a bridgehead for further struggle?

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has strongly condemned the Israeli shelling of the U. N. headquarters in Gaza City.

A year after Israel's assault on Gaza, some in the territory fear a similar cycle may soon ensue.

Israel and Egypt would open at least two border crossings into Gaza, easing a crippling blockade.

It was a well thought out premeditated plan to impede assistance from reaching the shores of those in Gaza.

The U. S. pledged on Friday to help stem the international traffic of arms from Iran and other suppliers to Gaza.

Mrs Clinton wants to help Gaza recover from the battering it received during the recent war between Israel and Hamas.

The killings take the total toll in Palestinian lives since the Israelis launched their assault on the Gaza Strip 11 days ago to above 600.

International pressure has been building up on Israel to agree to a cease-fire amid warnings of a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Egypt expressed its regret at the UNSC's failure to adopt a binding resolution calling for a stop of the ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza.

The footage showed soldiers walking through a deserted street in an unidentified location in Gaza.

The White House on Monday called on Hamas to halt rocket fire against Israel, so calm can be restored in Gaza.

Israel has called on the United Nations to scrap a report which accused it of war crimes during its Gaza offensive two years ago.

In recent months, people in Gaza believe the international community began to direct its attention elsewhere, neglecting the siege of Gaza.

On the Gaza border, the army said it had killed one man seen laying an explosive device.

Defense officials warn that the system will not completely eliminate the rocket threat from Lebanon and Gaza.

Israel began a ground incursion inside Gaza today with a significant number of troops backed by tanks and helicopters.

Rafah is on the Gaza-Egypt border and is the only access for Palestinians to the outside world, without going through Israel.

Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. "

Under the Geneva Convention, Israel has an obligation to allow normal life to take place in the Gaza Strip.

Kraehenbuehl said the Israeli authorities are allowing the Red Cross to bring medical supplies, including blood, into Gaza.

The incident ended an ambitious attempt to break Israel's blockade of Gaza.

Until now, Hamas has held the Islamist franchise in Gaza, fending off al-Qaida attempts to come on to its turf.

A host of other films on Gaza betrayed a fascination with Sderot's Palestinian neighbours that Israel has locked out for years.

Late yesterday France and Egypt proposed the initiative to stop the conflict in Gaza with an immediate ceasefire.

The US has agreed to provide intelligence and equipment to help prevent Hamas smuggling weapons into Gaza through tunnels.

For a second day, Israeli warplanes bombed targets in and around Gaza City.

UN report said the tunnels had become a lifeline for Gaza's Palestinians because of the Israeli blockade. Thousands work in the tunnels.

More bombs continued to drop over Gaza through the morning.

We've got a situation where the crossings have been opened, and food stuffs and medicines have been entering Gaza.

With its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Israel had sought to wash its hands of the crowded, increasingly radicalised territory.

Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more than 50 mortar shells into Israel, the biggest barrage since the Gaza War two years ago.

At least 14 protesters were shot when Palestinians sought to cross Israel's borders with Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza.

And those rockets like the ones that are being launched right here, those are fired at Israel from Gaza.

There's also been a barrage of rocket attacks on southern Israel from Gaza.

It declined to co-operate, for instance, with a UN inquiry into a shelling incident that killed 19 civilians in Gaza in 2006.

Mr Zahar says Gaza's forces would stay firmly under Hamas control during a proposed year-long interim period leading up to elections.

Palestinian family walked through the rubble of a destroyed house following an Israeli missile strike in Gaza City.

It's Israeli Defense System that shoots down rockets coming in from Gaza, so far it's intercepted about 30% of those rockets.

"We didn't set out to control Gaza, we don't want to remain in Gaza and we intend on leaving Gaza as quickly as possible, " he said.

Samson went to Gaza. There he saw a prostitute and went in to have sex with her.

America was once neutral: it was Eisenhower who forced Israel out of Gaza (and Britain out of Egypt) after Suez.

An Israeli air strike in the southern Gaza Strip has killed at least three Palestinians.

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have carried out a deadly cross-border raid. The attack is likely to provoke Israeli retaliation.

The reason for this, of course, was the fierce battle that was raging in Gaza. The U.

Ashdod, its towns and its villages; Gaza, its towns and its villages; unto the brook of Egypt, and the great sea, and the border [thereof].

Ping highlighted the lack of court action in Gaza, Iraq and Burma (Myanmar) as evidence of a double-standard against African states.

Israeli officials see in all this signs that Hamas now fears isolation after its takeover of Gaza.

They shot and killed two Israeli civilians who work for the company that supplies fuel to Gaza.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has decided to recall his ambassador to Israel in protest against the country's military operation in Gaza.

I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity.

Israel is going on the offensive against a scathing United Nations report about alleged atrocities against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has a right to stop weapons from going into Gaza, but there has been no suggestion that the ships were carrying a large cache.

Israel said Wednesday it would observe a three-hour cease-fire every other day to allow aid to be distributed in Gaza.

For years, many in the international community have been complicit in a policy that aimed at isolating Gaza in the hope of weakening Hamas.

But earlier this year the EU said it would hold up the agreement until Israel did more to alleviate the plight of Gaza.

It is fighting a small dirty war in Gaza and a big, destructive, high-tech war over the skies and off the coast of Lebanon.

Ging also accused Israel of a campaign of destroying public buildings vital to the administration and governance of Gaza.

It says he may continue to co-ordinate with Israel over security in the West Bank, and promises to let Fatah resume politics in Gaza.

Thousands of Palestinian civil servants and policemen took to the streets of Gaza, demanding their salaries, which are six months overdue.

The siege of Gaza might not look like the siege of Stalingrad, but a siege it is.

What bearing does all this history have on the foul events unfolding right now in Gaza?

The reality is more horrifying than imaginable for most with the United Nations saying that the Gaza Strip was a "living hell. "

Al Jazeera's bosses deny bias but explain that Palestine and especially the plight of Gaza are bound to top the agenda for Arabs.

Reconstruction of this Gaza apartment building is supported by materials that traveled through the tunnels.

The Cyprus-based Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish aid group known by the letters IHH organized the flotilla.

With its mild coastal climate and well-drained soil, the Gaza Strip is ideal for commercial flower cultivation.

The targets of Israeli bombing raids in Gaza now includes smuggling tunnels, as well as a top Hamas security installation.