GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas said on Wednesday its relations with financial backer Iran have suffered as a result of the Islamist group’s support of rebels battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a long-time Iranian ally.

Hamas was also once an Assad ally but last year endorsed the revolt against him in a shift that deprived the Syrian leader of an important Sunni Muslim supporter in the Arab world.

GAZA, May 13 (Reuters) – The fractious factions in the Gaza
Strip and across the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories
have found one voice to unite behind – a 22-year-old youth
singing songs about a lost homeland on the Middle East’s version
of ‘American Idol’.

Gaza native Mohammed Assaf has become the first Palestinian
to qualify for ‘Arab Idol’, a TV talent show staged in Beirut,
in which singers perform for judges and voting viewers.

GAZA (Reuters) – Leading Muslim cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi paid a high-profile visit to Gaza on Thursday, giving a boost to the Islamist group Hamas that runs the enclave, but also laying bare Palestinian rivalries.

Qaradawi, chairman of the International Federation of Muslim Clerics, is based in Qatar and has been a vociferous supporter of the revolutions that have shaken the Arab world in the last two years, bringing new governments to Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

GAZA (Reuters) – The alleged spy buried his face in his hands inside a Gaza jail as he admitted passing intelligence to Israel during its battles with armed Palestinian groups.

“My handlers in Israel called me and told me that collaborators in Gaza don’t know one another and that each worked alone, so hide and stay as you are,” the man told visiting reporters, under the watchful eye of a plainclothed Hamas security officer.

GAZA (Reuters) – The alleged spy buried his face in his hands inside a Gaza jail as he admitted passing intelligence to Israel during its battles with armed Palestinian groups.

“My handlers in Israel called me and told me that collaborators in Gaza don’t know one another and that each worked alone, so hide and stay as you are,” the man told visiting reporters, under the watchful eye of a plainclothed Hamas security officer.

GAZA (Reuters) – Islamist Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip on Friday rejected a revised Middle East peace initiative put forward by the Arab League, saying outsiders could not decide the fate of the Palestinians.

In meetings this week in Washington, Arab states appeared to soften their 2002 peace plan, acknowledging that Israelis and Palestinians may have to swap land in any eventual peace deal.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel on Tuesday launched its first targeted attack on a militant in Gaza since a war in November, killing a Palestinian jihadist in an air strike that put further strain on a five-month-old ceasefire.

There was also bloodshed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where for the first time since 2011, a Palestinian killed a Jewish settler. Israeli soldiers shot and wounded the attacker after he stabbed the man at a busy intersection.

GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian farmers in Gaza began destroying three tonnes of herbs on Saturday, saying a prolonged closure of the crossing into Israel meant the plants were no longer fit for export to Europe.

Last October, Israel lifted a five-year ban on the lucrative export of Gazan herbs and spices, imposed after the Islamist Hamas group seized control of the coastal enclave, and farmers had hoped to cash in with their latest crop of mint and basil.

GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinians opened a replica of a former Israeli prison in Gaza on Tuesday to help illuminate the plight of 4,800 kin jailed in Israel after weeks of protests that have triggered clashes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Murals of famous leaders of Palestinian militant groups who were once held in the Saraya prison decorated walls at the site, along with a leather banner listing the names of 12 detainees who died in what locals dubbed “the slaughterhouse”.

GAZA (Reuters) – Human Rights Watch accused the Islamist Hamas government in Gaza on Thursday of failing to investigate the summary executions of seven Palestinians alleged to have spied for Israel during a brief war last November.

Ihab al-Ghusain, head of the Hamas government media office, denied the allegation and said an inquiry headed by the prosecutor general was set up shortly after the incidents and had made recommendations to the cabinet. He did not elaborate.