Hamas authorities have shut the Gaza border with Israel after the killing of a senior commander, which Hamas blamed on "Israel and its collaborators". The rare measure reflected Hamas' shock after the killing of Mazen Faqha , who was found shot dead at the entrance of his Gaza City home late on Friday. Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bozum on Sunday announced (Arabic) that the Beit Hanoun checkpoint, which faces […]
Palestinian movement Hamas elected a member of its armed wing as its new leader in Gaza on Monday, Hamas officials said. "Yahya Sinwar was elected to head the Hamas political office in the Gaza Strip," the officials said. He will succeed Ismail Haniyeh, who is seen by many observers as the most likely successor to Hamas's current exiled leader Khaled Meshaal. In September 2015, Sinwar was added to the US […]
Senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh revealed on Saturday that Qatar is set to allocate millions of dollars in financial support for different projects in the besieged Gaza Strip. During a ceremony granting housing to Gazans whose homes were destroyed during the last Israeli military offensive on the small territory in 2014 that left tens of thousands homeless, Haniyeh announced that Qatar agreed to allocate $100 million in funds for housing reconstruction […]
The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority has agreed to form a unity government with rival organisation Hamas, Al Jazeera has learned. The agreement was reached late on Tuesday after a three-day negotiation in the Russian capital, Moscow. The two organisations will form a new National Council, which will include Palestinians in exile and hold elections. "Today the conditions for [such an initiative] are better than ever," Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior Fatah official, […]
Israel on Sunday ruled that it would not release to their families the bodies of Hamas members killed during attacks on Israelis, but would instead bury them, the government said. The decision by the security cabinet followed the release on Saturday by the Palestinian group of video footage showing a mock birthday party for Israeli soldier Oron Shaul, believed by the army to have been killed in the 2014 Gaza […]
The fall of Aleppo to Iran-backed pro-government forces has brought a bubbling conflict between Iran and Hamas to the boil, with the former making thinly-veiled threats to cut off the Palestinian group. The threats came from Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a member of the Iranian Foreign Affairs and National Security Committee, in the wake of increasing solidarity from Hamas to Aleppo. In an interview last week with the reformist Qanun newspaper, Falahatpisheh […]
The Palestinian Hamas group in Gaza blamed Israel on Saturday for the killing in Tunisia this week of a Tunisian national it described as one of its drone experts, and threatened retaliation. Hamas's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said Mohammed Zawari, who was gunned down near the city of Sfax on Thursday, had been a member of the group for 10 years and had been supervising its drone programme. Hamas, […]
A Palestinian opened fire from a car in Jerusalem Sunday and again as police chased him, killing two people, authorities said, after concerns over the potential for a new upsurge in violence. The gunman was killed soon after carrying out the attack near police headquarters, close to the line dividing mainly Palestinian east Jerusalem from the mostly Jewish western sector of the city. The shooting rampage comes at a time […]
VOC became the first Muslim radio station in South Africa when a special events license was granted to the station in Ramadan/January 1995. Subsequent temporary broadcast licenses were granted, permitting the station to broadcast for 24 hours.
