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.

GAZA CITY, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - Under a deal struck with Egypt, dozens of Hamas members were allowed to return to the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing early Sunday after months of being stuck at the border, a Hamas spokesman said.

Around 100 Palestinians crossed into Gaza from Egypt before dawn through the Rafah crossing, which has been closed since the Islamists seized power in the coastal strip in mid-June.

GAZA CITY, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - The Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza called on Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries on Wednesday to stay away from a US-sponsored Middle East peace meeting expected in November.

'The (Hamas) government warns that the autumn conference will be a new occasion for negotiators to make concessions,' it said in a statement.

'We thus call on our Arab brothers not to venture into this obscure tunnel. In particular, we call on Saudi Arabia not to participate in this conference,' it said.

JERUSALEM, Sept 23, 2007 (AFP) - Prominent Israeli writers called on the government on Sunday to negotiate a ceasefire with the Islamist movement Hamas as a step towards lasting peace with the Palestinians.

'We call on the representatives of the government to negotiate with Hamas,' the writers said in a petition, adding that this would 'bring an end to rocket attacks against Israel'. They underlined that in the past, Israel had negotiated with its 'worst enemies'.

GAZA CITY, Sept 23, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reaffirmed his support for the Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip in a telephone call with the premier dismissed by the Palestinian leadership, a Hamas spokesman said on Sunday.

'Prime minister Ismail Haniya spoke on Saturday night with... the president of the Iranian Islamic republic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,' spokesman Tahar al-Nunu said.

'He wished him well on the occasion of the month of Ramadan and reaffirmed Palestinian-Iranian ties,' he added.

RAMALLAH, Sept 22, 2007 (AFP) - Palestinian police blocked a West Bank protest march on Saturday by some 200 women supporters of Hamas angry at the detention of scores of Islamists since the movement's June takeover of Gaza.

A police cordon blocked the women from marching from the Al-Bireh mosque in the central city of Ramallah, where moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has his headquarters, an AFP photographer reported.

DALLAS, Texas, Sept 20, 2007 (AFP) - A high-profile battle in the US 'war on terror' is in the hands of 12 Texas jurors who must decide whether what was once America's largest Muslim charity was actually a front for Palestinian terrorists.

Government prosecutors allege that the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development raised millions of dollars for Hamas, but they do not accuse the charity of directly financing terrorist activity.

JERUSALEM, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday that the Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip was a 'hostile entity' for the United States, after Israel made a similar declaration.

'Hamas is indeed a hostile entity. It is a hostile entity to the US as well,' Rice said at a press conference with Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni.

JERUSALEM, Sept 18, 2007 (AFP) - An Israeli commission is to investigate the 2002 air strike that killed top Hamas leader Salah Shehade along with 14 civilians, the first such inquiry since the start of the Palestinian uprising, officials said on Tuesday.

The prosecutor's office informed the supreme court that such a commission will be set up, made up of members of the military and the Shin Beth domestic security service, said an official with the Yesh Gvul group that has demanded in vain for years to hold officials accountable for the strike.

GAZA CITY, Sept 18, 2007 (AFP) - Susan Aqal is a tightly veiled Palestinian mother who has a baby boy. But she has abandoned traditional domestic life to interrogate suspected drug addicts, thieves and murderers in the volatile Gaza Strip.

A university graduate who worked as a lawyer for various organisations, she leapt at the chance to fulfill her dream of becoming a police officer after the radical Islamist movement Hamas seized the territory in June.

JERUSALEM, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - Israel's deputy defence minister said on Monday the government should study the possibility of a truce with the Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip, provided rocket fire from the territory stops.

'All propositions for a ceasefire must be examined, but it cannot be taken under consideration as long as Hamas does not stop rocket fire against Israel,' Matan Vilnai told public radio.

'A test period of a week to two weeks' is needed, he said.

GAZA CITY, Sept 16, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas said on Sunday it was abiding by a truce with Israel as Muslims mark the holy month of Ramadan, amid fears the Jewish state might launch a major incursion into the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip.

'The government confirms that it is implementing decisions of the unity government, especially the truce between the two sides,' Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu said in a statement.

GAZA CITY, Sept 16, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas said on Sunday it was abiding by a ceasefire with Israel, amid fears that the Jewish state would launch a major incursion into the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip.

'The government confirms that it is implementing decisions of the unity government, especially the ceasefire between the two sides, Israel and the Palestinians,' Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu said in a statement.

The Islamist movement issued the statement 'because we are in the middle of Ramadan and we want to... reopen the crossings and end the siege,' Nunu later told AFP.

GAZA CITY, Sept 16, 2007 (AFP) - A small explosion shook the headquarters of Hamas-run security forces in Gaza City on Sunday, wounding at least four people, witnesses said.

The blast came just hours after Hamas's self-styled police force said it had found and defused a bomb placed near the Palestinian parliament building in the Gaza Strip, the latest in a series of such finds.

'Executive Force members found a 15-kilogramme (33-pound) bomb near the main door of the parliament building and defused the device,' spokesman Islam Shahwan told AFP.

GAZA CITY, Sept 16, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas's self-styled police force said on Sunday it has found and defused a bomb placed near the Palestinian parliament building in the Gaza Strip, the latest of such explosives found.

'Executive Force members found a 15-kilogram (33-pound) bomb near the main door of the parliament building and defused the device,' spokesman Islam Shahwan told AFP.

He was referring to the paramilitary force that has acted as police in the territory after it was taken over by the Islamist movement Hamas three months ago.

GAZA CITY, Sept 13, 2007 (AFP) - The Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip on Thursday called on armed Palestinian groups to stop firing rockets at border crossings between the territory and Israel.

'The government calls on Palestinian factions to avoid bombarding the border crossings in order to protect the interests of the Palestinian people during this month of Ramadan,' Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu said in a statement.

GAZA CITY, Sept 12, 2007 (AFP) - A bearded man in the blue combat fatigues of the new Hamas-run Gaza police held the steel door open as cameramen clamoured to enter Gaza City's notorious Soraya jail.

Less than an hour earlier the Executive Force, the new face of law and order in the restive coastal territory, had announced it would free 84 prisoners as a gesture of goodwill on Wednesday, the eve of the holy month of Ramadan.

GAZA CITY, Sept 12, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas said on Wednesday its security forces in Gaza have gone on high alert ahead of an anticipated large-scale Israeli offensive in the Islamist-controlled Palestinian territory.

Hamas, which violently seized control of Gaza three months ago, said in a statement it had obtained 'clear information' indicating that the 'Zionist forces are preparing to launch a vast air, ground and sea offensive' in Gaza.

GAZA CITY, Sept 12, 2007 (AFP) - The Hamas movement announced on Wednesday the release of 84 prisoners in the Islamists-controlled Gaza Strip on the eve of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The director of Gaza's central prison, Ali Hamid, said at a press conference that the 84 prisoners had been sentenced over criminal and security-related charges as well as disturbing public order.

After the release, some 270 people would remain held in the central prison, he said.

GAZA, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Ousted former Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya is prepared to meet with president Mahmud Abbas in Saudi Arabia, Haniya's Islamist Hamas movement said on Monday.

Haniya told Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz in a telephone call that he was 'ready to meet Mahmud Abbas to try and resolve the dispute between Palestinian brothers based on the Mecca accord,' Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu told AFP.

Abbas, head of Hamas's rival Fatah movement, is due to meet Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Tuesday.

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - A senior Fatah leader jailed in Israel warned on Monday that Hamas could orchestrate an armed takeover in the occupied West Bank after capturing the Gaza Strip nearly three months ago.

'It would be a mistake if the Palestinian Authority doesn't take this possibility seriously, especially as the security services are so weak,' Marwan Barhuti said in a statement released through his lawyer.

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana insisted during a visit to the Middle East on Monday that the 27-nation bloc would have no contact with radical Islamist movement Hamas.

'I want to repeat the position of the EU. There will not be contacts between the EU and Hamas,' Solana told reporters in the West Bank political capital Ramallah where a Western-backed Palestinian government is based.

'It is part of the policy of the Quartet. You know very well what Hamas has to do in order to change that policy,' he added.

GAZA CITY, Sept 2, 2007 (AFP) - Several dozen Palestinians rallied in front of a Hamas headquarters in Gaza on Sunday, demanding the Islamists release political foes arrested during demonstrations two days ago.

'Release, release our sons!' chanted some 50 people, many of them women, who held a sit-in in front of the al-Saraya complex that serves as headquarters for the Executive Force, Hamas paramilitaries who have acted as police since the Islamists seized control of the territory in mid-June.

JERUSALEM, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - Israel said on Wednesday it had agreed on a prisoner exchange with Hamas in return for a captured soldier several months ago, but that talks broke down after the Islamists seized power in Gaza.

'An agreement in principle had been reached three and a half months ago thanks to Egyptian mediation,' Ofer Dekel, the Israeli official in charge of the talks, was quoted as saying by army and public radio.

GAZA CITY, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas on Tuesday ordered the closure of four private Gaza clinics, in which staff were taking part in a public sector slowdown to protest at the firing of Fatah hospital officials by the Islamists.

'We have closed four clinics,' Khaled Radi, a spokesman for the Hamas health ministry, told AFP. 'We have always said that we will take measures against all doctors who participate in political strikes and we will continue to take measures against them.'

DAMASCUS, Aug 27, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal said a planned US conference aimed at kickstarting peacemaking in the Middle East was doomed to failure, in an interview with CNN television broadcast on Monday.

'I think that this conference will fail for many reasons,' said Meshaal, who tops Israel's most wanted list and now lives in exile in the Syrian capital.

JERUSALEM, Aug 26, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas is seeking to launch a 'large-scale' suicide attack inside Israel to torpedo chances of a peace deal with moderate Palestinians, a senior security official warned on Sunday.

The second in command of Israel's Shin Beth internal security services was quoted by a senior government official as telling ministers during the weekly cabinet meeting that the Islamist group's exiled leadership in Damascus is calling for such an attack.

RAMALLAH , West Bank, Aug 25, 2007 (AFP) - Dozens of Palestinian journalists protested in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday against what they called aggression by the Islamist Hamas movement against their Gaza colleagues.

Demonstrators in the city centre brandished placards denouncing the politics of 'silencing voices.'

'We are protesting against violations of the freedom of the press by members of the Executive Force,' the Hamas paramilitary wing, a journalist with the Al-Ayam daily, Khalil Shahin, told AFP.

GAZA CITY, Aug 24, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas briefly detained four journalists, including an AFP photographer, on Friday as it broke up a mass rally for the rival Fatah movement in Gaza City.

Forces from the Islamist movement which has ruled Gaza since mid-June forced AFP photographer Mohammed Abed from his car as he left the rally, during which Hamas fighters fired in the air to disperse the several thousand demonstrators.

Hamas also detained three other cameramen, Mustafa al-Bayed, Khaled Bulbul and Ibrahim Dahman, witnesses said.

GAZA CITY, Aug 24, 2007 (AFP) - Members of Hamas's Executive Force opened fire at a mass rally by the rival Fatah movement in Gaza City on Friday, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone was wounded during the protest in central Gaza City, where several thousand Fatah supporters had gathered.

Hamas forces detained three photographers at the rally, including AFP journalist Mohammed Abed, witnesses said.

AMMAN, Aug 23, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal said efforts to end the bitter feud with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas were deadlocked because of Israeli and US meddling, and insisted his men would stay in control of Gaza.

And he warned in an interview with AFP that despite renewed efforts to forge peace between Israel and the Palestinians, resistance remained the only option for Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

GAZA CITY, Aug 21, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas said on Tuesday it will not interfere in the work of Gaza's electricity company in a bid to persuade the European Union to resume financing of the territory's sole power plant to end blackouts.

The Islamist movement, which seized control of Gaza two months ago, denied it had diverted money from the territory's electricity company and said it would provide guarantees that the utility would function independently.

GAZA CITY, Aug 18, 2007 (AFP) - Sacked Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas said on Saturday his Islamist movement rejected the right of the Palestinian Authority to make concessions to Israel.

'The Palestinian leadership does not have the right to violate the rights of Palestinians' in negotiations with Israel, Haniya told reporters in Gaza City, referring to a Middle East peace conference called by the United States for later this year.

NABLUS, West Bank, Aug 18, 2007 (AFP) - A civil engineer and Hamas official was kidnapped on Saturday from his office in the West Bank town of Nablus by masked men who bundled him into a car, witnesses said.

'Baha Tuffaha was at his office in the Nablus municipal buildings when armed and masked men forced him to follow them,' a witness told AFP.

'They bundled him into a car and drove off to an unknown destination,' the witness added.

The Islamist Hamas movement won 13 of the 15 seats on Nablus council in local elections 20 months ago.

ROME, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has urged Hamas to halt violence, accept Israel's right to exist and return 'to the Palestinian political scene,' according to a letter published Wednesday.

'The conditions for Hamas... to return to the Palestinian political scene depend on it and those set out by the (Middle East) Quartet: cessation of violence, the recognition of previous pacts signed by Israel and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) as well as the Hebrew state's right to exist,' the open letter said.

GAZA CITY, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - Israel warned against dialogue with Hamas on Tuesday after Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and a British parliamentary committee urged a rethink of the West's boycott of the Islamists.

'As long as Hamas calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, the role of the international community is to refuse to compromise with the terrorists,' Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said at a press conference with her Japanese counterpart, Taro Aso, in Jerusalem.

GAZA CITY, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - Hamas on Tuesday welcomed comments by Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and a British parliamentary committee that urged a rethink of the West's boycott of the Islamists ruling the Gaza Strip.

'The government of (sacked premier Ismail) Haniya appreciates the statement from Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi calling for dialogue between the West and Hamas,' Haniya's office said in a statement.