Rafah, Palestinian Territory News

Two local peace activists were attempting to get medical supplies into Gaza this weekend, just days after a similar mission resulted in 21 people being detained by the Israeli military.

Egypt and Jordan are refusing to allow two Palestinian deportees to return to the Gaza Strip, the Ma'an News Agency reported.

Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border opened briefly on 25, 26 and 27 June allowing Gaza patients in need of emergency care, students, and foreign visa holders to exit.

Israel's naval blockade of the waters off Gaza - part of a wider Israeli effort to seal off the tiny coastal strip controlled by the Islamist militant group Hamas - is devastating a key Gazan industry and source of food: fishing.

Citing security concerns and fears of arms smuggling, Israel has progressively tightened the blockade over the past 15 years to a zone that today extends only three nautical miles (NM) from shore. Once a thriving enterprise, Gaza's fishing industry is now on the verge of collapse. Fishermen are cut off from the heavily populated shoals, and have seen total catch and total revenue drop by rougly half in less than a decade.

CAIRO [MENL] -- Egypt, bolstered by U.S. aid, has launched a project to refurbish its border terminal with the Gaza Strip.

Laila El-Haddad is hoping she will see her parents soon, as the Rafah Crossing from Gaza into Egypt is temporarily opened: "Of the some 5000 Palestinians registered to cross, only 250 were allowed out of Gaza on the first day , and only 4 buses scheduled to depart today.

A delegation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement arrived in Egypt on Saturday headed by Ahmed Qurei to take part in the sixth round of the Palestinian dialogue in Cairo.

Egypt plans to again temporarily open its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip, allowing some Palestinians to leave the blockaded territory.

"Unity, reconciliation and dialogue are my message on behalf of all the Palestinian prisoners," said Aziz Duwaik, Hamas' Legislative Council speaker in his first public speech since he was released from an Israeli prison on Tuesday.

With no cement or construction materials being allowed by Israel or Egypt into the Gaza Strip, residents are starting to build homes out of mud, using earth excavated from economic tunnels that provide an uncertain lifeline to the outside world.

My Name Is Rachel Corrie is a play that has caused the blood to boil of too many people who have neither seen it nor read it.

"The Egyptians are not able to stop the smuggling entirely, not able or willing, because as long as the current situation in Gaza stands with the blockade, the tunnels are a necessary lifeline." Issandr El Amrani, a Cairo-based analyst and writer Egypt is taking a more aggressive role in stopping the flow of arms into the Gaza Strip destined for ...

The Hamas movement said Tuesday morning that the movement's members would pass on to Gilad Shalit a letter former US President Jimmy Carter received Friday from the kidnapped soldier's parents.

President Obama was giving his speech to the Arab world while I was in Gaza, a few kilometres from the borders of Egypt along with 65 members of an international delegation.

Four Palestinians were wounded early Sunday in Israeli aerial bombing targeted smuggling tunnels on Gaza-Egypt border, local sources said.

'For the first time, we feel we have a friend in the White House." This is what a Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah had to say this week, after listening to US President Barack Obama's address to Arabs and Muslims from Cairo.

Growing numbers of children forever maimed are disregarded by the world media. By Ramzy Baroud His room is ready; the walls have fresh paint and my kids prepared a basket of chocolates and other treats to place beside his bed.

Palestinian Hamas fighters wear masks to conceal their identities from the camera as they watch President Obama's televised speech at training base in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday.

A Palestinian boy sits on a row of adobe bricks in the town of Rafah, the centre of Gaza's mud industry enlarge On the one hand it's the ultimate in "de-development." But on the other it's a testament to Gazan ingenuity which has somehow been undimmed by three bloody weeks of war and two years of total economic blockade.

In his speech to the Muslim world, President Obama offered little that was new. And he didn't connect the dots in his bullet-point lecture.