GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas began talks to form a unity government on Monday in a renewed bid to heal political rifts, paving the way for a general election.

Hamas runs the Gaza Strip – cut off from the West Bank by Israeli territory – as a separate entity, ignoring policies set by Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The split has divided the Palestinians politically as well as geographically.

While Fatah endorses the goal of a two-state solution with Israel, Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Its leaders say they could accept a Palestinian state in return for a long-term truce with Israel, an offer Israel rejects.

On Monday, however, Hamas prime minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh met Hanna Nasir, chairman of the Palestinian Central Election Commission (CEC) appointed by Abbas, to choose members of a technocratic government to oversee the election, a Palestinian official involved in the talks told Reuters.

The official who asked not to be identified said: “President Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal will meet next week to finalize the formation of the government and hopefully to announce it, should everything go well.”

At a news conference, held jointly with Nasir, Haniyeh’s deputy Mohammed Awad said: “They (CEC) can start registering the people (voters) in Gaza immediately and without any delays.”

Hamas’s agreement to let the CEC work in Gaza was a condition set by Abbas for starting consultations on forming a unity government. Nasir said voter registration would take six weeks and Abbas would then decide on a date for presidential and parliamentary elections.

GAZA, May 23 (Reuters) – Israeli gunboats and an Egyptian clampdown on fuel smuggling into the Gaza Strip are strangling the Palestinian enclave’s little fishing fleet, slowly turning a generation of fishermen into fishmongers.

Since 2009, they have been unable to sail out beyond three miles because of Israel’s strictly enforced blockade. This year they can hardly afford to go out at all because diesel has nearly tripled in price.

There are about 3,700 full-time fishermen in the Gaza Strip ready to serve a market of 1.7 million Palestinians. They used to export to Israel. Now Gaza imports about 80 percent of its needs from the Egyptians and the Israelis.

“Once we made enough to let us give away fish to the poor and needy people. These days we are begging for aid,” said Mahmoud Al-Assi, 66, a fisherman most of his life and currently the chairman of Gaza’s non-profit Fishermens’ Society, which supports boat owners with tools, ice and fuel.

“Just like the fish, we will die if we’re out of the water for too long,” said Al-Assi.

Fresh fish from the Mediterranean, grilled or fried, is Gaza’s favourite dish. Grouper, bream, bass and snapper are prized. But this year the fleet even missed the usually plentiful season of cheap sardines.

Driving along the coast road by Gaza City you cannot miss the fish market – a covered corridor hosting twelve shops, decorated with images of various kinds of fish. The smell of the fresh catch of shrimp and crab blows ashore on the sea breeze.

GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails agreed on Monday to an Egyptian-brokered deal aimed at ending a mass hunger strike that challenged Israel’s policy of detention without trial and raised fears of a bloody Palestinian backlash if any protesters died.

Most of some 1,600 prisoners, a third of the 4,800 Palestinians in Israeli jails, began refusing food on April 17 although a few had been fasting much longer – up to 77 days.

Their protest centred on demands for more family visits, an end to solitary confinement and an end to so-called “administrative detention”, a practice that has drawn international criticism on human rights grounds.

Palestinian officials said Egypt had drafted an agreement in Cairo with representatives of the Palestinian prisoners, and that inmates met during the day and had agreed to the terms.

There was no immediate word from the prisoners as to whether any had actually ended their strike.

An Egyptian official involved in the talks said that under Monday’s deal to end the strike, Israel had agreed to end solitary confinement for 19 prisoners and lifted a ban on visits to prisoners by relatives living in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Israel also agreed to improve other conditions of detention, and to free so-called administrative detainees once they complete their terms unless they are brought to court, the Egyptian official said.

GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian prisoners considered an Egyptian-brokered deal on Monday aimed at ending a mass hunger strike that is challenging Israel’s policy of detention without trial.

Some 1,600 prisoners, a third of the 4,800 Palestinians in Israeli jails, began refusing food on April 17 in a protest that also included demands for more family visits and an end to solitary confinement.

The peaceful campaign has focused attention on so-called “administrative detention”, a practice that has drawn international criticism, and raised fears of a violent Palestinian backlash if any of the protesters die.

Palestinian officials said Egypt had drafted an agreement in Cairo with representatives of the Palestinian prisoners, and that inmates would meet during the day to sign off on the deal.

But later they said that talks in Ashkelon jail, south of Tel Aviv, between senior prisoners and Israeli authorities had hit a snag, and an Egyptian mediator would try to break the deadlock. Israel’s Prisons Service declined comment.

The officials said Israeli authorities had balked at the agreement’s call for the release of any inmate whose detention term, usually a six-month period that can be renewed by a military court, has ended.

But they said Israel had agreed under the deal to renew family visits for prisoners from the Gaza Strip and end the solitary confinement of 19 inmates.

GAZA (Reuters) – Egypt has brokered a deal aimed at ending a hunger strike by 1,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a Palestinian source close to the negotiations said on Monday.

One in three of the 4,800 Palestinians serving time in Israeli jails began refusing food on April 17 in protest against detention without trial and to demand better conditions like an increase in family visits and ending solitary confinement.

The scope of the hunger strike has posed a new challenge to Israel, which has come under international criticism over detention without trial and could face a violent Palestinian backlash if any of the protesters die.

“Egypt has concluded a deal to resolve the prisoner crisis that included Israel’s acceptance of prisoners’ demands in exchange for ending the hunger strike,” said the Palestinian source who is close to the talks in Cairo.

Asked about news of the deal, an Israeli Prisons Service spokeswoman said: “The strike is still on … we are not commenting on the process.”

Egyptian mediators have been meeting Palestinian officials negotiating on behalf of the hunger strikers, and the source said an official announcement would be made after prisoners sign off on the deal.

While Israel had signaled it was prepared to offer concessions on prison conditions, it has showed no willingness to end so-called administrative detention, where prisoners can be held indefinitely without charge or trial.

GAZA (Reuters) – Hundreds of Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli jails said on Friday they would shun vitamin supplements and prison clinics in an escalation of their mass protest against detention conditions.

“We swear we will not retreat. We are potential martyrs. Either we live in dignity or die,” prisoner organizers said in a letter announcing the move and which was read out by Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Islamist Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, during a demonstration.

An estimated 1,600 inmates out of 4,800 launched the hunger strike on April 17 to demand improved conditions in Israeli custody, such as an end to solitary confinement and more family visits. They have also challenged Israel’s policy of indefinite detention without charge of suspected Palestinian militants.

The fate of the hunger strikers has touched a raw nerve among Palestinians, with daily support rallies in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and political leaders warning that Israel could face new violence should any prisoner die.

Dozens of Palestinians, including militants and politicians who had served terms in Israeli jails in the past, have gone on hunger strikes in tents put up in solidarity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which witnessed daily heavy attendance by residents and visitors from Arab and foreign countries.

The prisoners include Islamists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which reject peace with the Jewish state, as well as members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular and Western-backed Fatah movement.

Israel says all prisoners receive adequate medical attention, including in civilian hospitals if required.

GAZA (Reuters) – Islamic leaders in the Gaza Strip called on Friday for militants to kidnap Israelis and use them as bargaining chips to secure the freedom of thousands of Palestinians prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Human rights groups say up to 2,000 prisoners have joined an open-ended hunger strike to protest against jail conditions and thousands of Palestinians staged a rally in the Gaza Strip to support their cause.

“We should work hard to get (Israeli) prisoners in our hands in order to secure the freedom of our prisoners,” Khaled Al-Batsh, a senior member of the Islamic Jihad, told the crowd.

“I say to all armed factions, the way to free the prisoners is through swaps … An arrest for an arrest, and freedom for freedom. This is the way,” he said.

Israel last year freed some 1,000 Palestinians in return for the release of Gilad Shalit, a soldier seized in 2006 and held by the Islamist group Hamas in secret captivity for five years.

Human Rights groups say at least 4,700 Palestinians remain in Israeli jails, many of them convicted for violent crimes. Palestinian leaders say they should be treated as prisoners of war, something Israel rejects.

Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza, said Palestinian militant factions would “never abandon” the prisoners.

GAZA, April 3 (Reuters) – The Gaza Strip’s Hamas government and the rival Palestinian Authority (PA) agreed to an Egyptian-brokered deal on Tuesday to end a fuel crisis that has caused daily power cuts in the territory, officials said.

Under the agreement, an Israeli company will supply industrial diesel for the Gaza Strip’s only power plant and a temporary mechanism will be put in place whereby Hamas can pay the bill without dealing directly with its enemy, Israel.

“The Hamas authorities in Gaza will pay the money … to the PA and the PA will take care of the payment to the Israeli side,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak publicly about the deal.

Taher al-Nono, spokesman of the Hamas government in Gaza, said fuel would begin flowing on Wednesday. A first payment of two million Israeli shekels ($539,000) had already been transferred to the PA, he said.

Major power blackouts have plagued the Gaza Strip, disrupting the lives of many of its 1.7 million inhabitants, since February when neighbouring Egypt cracked down on fuel smuggling into the enclave.

Hamas accused Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority of causing the crisis in the hope of winning political concessions from the group, which has opposed U.S.-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Officials from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement have accused Hamas of pouring revenues from smuggled fuel into the Islamist movement’s coffers.

GAZA (Reuters) – A Palestinian woman held by Israel without charge was deported to the Gaza Strip on Sunday under a deal that ended her 44-day hunger strike.

Hana Shalabi of the Islamic Jihad militant group was put into so-called “administrative detention” on February 16. An Israeli military official said that in return for her release from jail, she had agreed to three years’ exile in the Gaza Strip.

A resident of the occupied West Bank, Shalabi went on hunger strike the day she was arrested, in protest at being held without trial. An Israeli official has said she was suspected of involvement in planned Islamic Jihad attacks.

She had been jailed previously by Israel and freed in October as part of a swap for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive in Hamas Islamist-ruled Gaza for more than five years.

Shalabi arrived in Gaza before nightfall in an ambulance, after a tearful farewell with family members who saw her at Gaza’s Erez crossing with Israel before she was deported, medics who escorted her said.

Israel says it uses detention without trial to protect intelligence sources in any legal proceedings against a Palestinian suspect.

The measure has drawn criticism from human rights groups and the European Union.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel allowed nine fuel tankers to cross into the Gaza Strip on Friday to ease a severe power shortage triggered by a dispute over supplies between Egypt and the enclave’s Hamas Islamist rulers.

The delivery of around 450,000 liters of industrial diesel was the first to Gaza’s only power station coming via Israel in almost a year after Hamas softened on its resistance to accepting supplies from its Jewish neighbor.

The fuel is enough to power the plant, which serves two thirds of Gaza’s population, for one day, an official from Gaza’s energy authority said.

A Palestinian official said contacts were under way to arrange an additional delivery on Friday.

The fuel crisis has crippled Gaza in recent weeks. Petrol pumps have run dry and its 1.7 million residents suffer major electricity black outs.

The dispute followed Egypt’s insistence that fuel imports to Gaza pass through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border and its crackdown on smuggled supplies last month.

Hamas objects to that arrangement, not wanting Israel, a country whose right to exist it does not recognize, the power to block supplies in times of tension. It wants direct trade with Egypt, which could strengthen Gaza’s economy and Hamas’s popularity.