From Occupied Palestine

Israel rejects 'insincere' Hamas offer of 10-year truce
JUSTIN HUGGLER
Independent, 27 January 2004

Hamas, the most powerful Palestinian militant faction, could agree to a 10-year truce if Israel withdraws from all the land it occupied in 1967, one of the organisation's senior leaders has said. Israel immediately dismissed the comments, from Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a leader of Hamas's political wing, as insincere.

Israel marks out spiritual leader of Hamas for 'elimination'
JUSTIN HUGGLER
Independent, 17 January 2004

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the wheelchair-bound spiritual leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has been "marked for death" by Israel, the Israeli deputy defence minister said yesterday.

Israel threatened to resume its campaign of assassinations of Hamas leaders in response to Wednesday's suicide bombing at the Erez border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, in which four Israelis were killed.

'God gave me two children and I loved them so much'
The suicide message of a mother who left home to kill
JUSTIN HUGGLER
Independent, 15 January 2004

Erez border crossing, Gaza Strip -- In the video she left before she died, Reem al-Riashi said she had dreamt of becoming a "martyr", that she wanted pieces of her body to fly like "deadly shrapnel".

Yesterday they were sponging up her body parts from the floor, indistinguishable from the flesh of the four other people she murdered when she detonated the bomb in her vest.

Palestinians may demand a 'one-state solution'
JUSTIN HUGGLER
Independent, 10 January 2004

In a move that could transform the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia has warned that he will demand a single state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians, if Ariel Sharon goes ahead with his threat to annex parts of the West Bank and unilaterally impose a border on a Palestinian state.

Bethlehem to be encircled in steel as 'security fence' snakes its way around holy city
JUSTIN HUGGLER
Independent, 20 December 2003

"We're not celebrating Christmas this year," says Yaqub Kasis, a member of Bethlehem's dwindling community of Palestinian Christians.

It should be a time of celebration for the city where Christ was born. Unlike last year, this Christmas there are no Israeli soldiers in Bethlehem's streets and the tanks have gone. "This Christmas is quieter than before," Mr Kasis says. "But it's worse. It's worse because of the wall."

Blame Israel, says Red Cross as it ends food aid for West Bank
JUSTIN HUGGLER
Independent, 16 November 2003

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is ending its emergency food programme in the West Bank, saying the economic collapse there is the direct result of Israeli military closures and that Israel must live up to its responsibility as the occupying power for the economic needs of the Palestinians.

Disaster looms for Israel, say ex-security chiefs
JUSTIN HUGGLER
Independent, 15 November 2003

Four former chiefs of Israel's Shin Bet security service launched an extraordinary attack on Ariel Sharon yesterday, saying his policies were catastrophic and endangered Israel's future as a Jewish state.

The four men gave a joint interview to the mass circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth, in which they called for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories and evacuate Jewish settlements there.

Israeli fence 'will harm one in three Palestinians'
JUSTIN HUGGLER
Independent, 12 November 2003

The "separation fence" Israel is building in the West Bank will have "severe humanitarian consequences" for almost 700,000 Palestinians, the UN warned yesterday.

More than 274,000 will be stranded outside the wall because Israel refuses to build it along the internationally recognised Green Line. Thousands will be forced to apply for Israeli military permits to live in their own homes.

Mahmud, 10, went looking for songbirds ... and died in hail of bullets
JUSTIN HUGGLER
Independent, 8 November 2003

Shajiyeh, Gaza Strip -- Mahmud al-Qayed was out doing what he did every Friday - catching songbirds in cages to sell in the markets of Gaza. But yesterday the remote olive groves where the birds nest led him close to the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel. Too close for the soldiers guarding the fence.

Israeli army chief's criticism of Sharon may ease restrictions in occupied lands
JUSTIN HUGGLER
Independent, 1 November 2003

Moves are under way to ease restrictions for millions of Palestinians in the occupied territories. The plan was confirmed yesterday after the Israeli army's chief of staff, Moshe Ya'alon, was named as the source behind an attack on the hardline policies of Ariel Sharon's government.