GAZA CITY, Oct 14, 2007 (AFP) - A member of the armed wing of the Islamist Hamas movement was shot and seriously wounded in the Gaza Strip on Sunday by what eyewitnesses said was Israeli fire.

An Israeli military spokeswoman, however, said that after an 'initial inquiry' the army had no knowledge of the incident.

The shooting was reported to have taken place near the village of Beit Hanun on the northern edge of the impoverished coastal enclave, in an area frequently raided by Israel in recent months as it targets Palestinian alleged militants.

GAZA CITY, Oct 14, 2007 (AFP) - A member of the armed wing of the Islamist Hamas movement was shot and seriously wounded by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, eyewitnesses said.

The incident took place near the village of Beit Hanun on the northern edge of the impoverished coastal enclave, in an area where Israel has launched frequent raids in recent months targeting alleged militants.

The Israeli army would not immediately comment on the incident.

GAZA CITY, Oct 14, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas's police force arrested a cameraman in the Gaza Strip on Sunday as he was filming a protest by their secular Fatah party rivals, according to his employer and his family.

Nabil Abu Daya, 34, a cameraman for Palestinian public television, was arrested while filming scores of children visiting the homes of slain Palestinians in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

GAZA CITY, Oct 13, 2007 (AFP) - A pre-dawn Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun on Saturday killed a Hamas militant and wounded at least five people, witnesses and Palestinian medics said.

Hassan Naem, 20, a militant from the armed wing of Hamas, was killed and five other people, including at least two militants, were wounded in the strike, a medical official said.

GAZA CITY, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - An isolated Gaza Strip marked its first Eid al-Fitr on Friday since Hamas wrested control in a bloody takeover as the Islamists warned against Palestinian concessions at an upcoming US summit.

Addressing a packed football stadium in the heart of Gaza City, the head of the sacked Hamas government urged Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas not to concede to Israel at a US-sponsored meeting expected next month.

GAZA CITY, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - Senior Hamas leader and sacked prime minister Ismail Haniya on Friday warned Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas against making concessions to Israel at a scheduled international summit.

'There will be a new peace conference this year, and this conference will endanger not only the Palestinian cause but the entire Arab nation,' Haniya said after leading thousands in prayer on the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday.

GAZA CITY, Oct 7, 2007 (AFP) - The Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza on Sunday said it would attend a conference to be held in Syria in November to rival a US-sponsored international Middle East peace meet.

'Hamas and (its political supremo) Khaled Meshaal will participate in this conference in Damascus,' Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP.

GAZA CITY, Oct 6, 2007 (AFP) - Senior Hamas leader and former Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya has called on Arab countries to boycott a US-sponsored Middle East peace meeting due to be held next month.

'We call on our Arab brothers, particularly the Saudi Arabian kingdom and Egypt, to reconsider any decision to participate in this conference,' he said in an interview published on Saturday in Palestine magazine, which is close to the Islamist group.

NABLUS, West Bank, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - They make the rules in Gaza, but in the West Bank, the Islamist Hamas movement is keeping a low profile in the face of a crackdown by forces loyal to moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

The loyalists of Abbas's Fatah party have hit out hard at Hamas after it routed their colleagues in a week of bloody fighting in Gaza in mid-June.

Since then, offices of Hamas and organisations linked to the Islamists have been torched, and fighters and imams close to the movement arrested.

GAZA CITY, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - The Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza has arrested Fatah member Yahya Rabah, who served as Palestinian representative to Yemen, accusing him of corruption, witnesses and officials said on Sunday.

Rabah, who is also a columnist at the Al-Hayat Al-Jadida daily, was arrested overnight at his home, witnesses said.

'Yahya Rabah was summoned after numerous complaints from citizens concerning problems of money,' a spokesman for the Hamas-run interior ministry, Ihab al-Ghassin, told AFP.