As its popularity is challenged, Hamas keeps watchful eye over its Palestinian rival in Gaza

Tensions between Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have sparked a number of armed conflicts and smaller scale flare-ups in the last decade. Yet within Gaza there is a web of internal tensions and simmering rivalries between Palestinian factions. So far, these have not posed a threat to Hamas’s iron grip on its enclave, but as its popularity is questioned, that might change one day. Read more

Abbas declares Israeli legislation won’t stop him from paying terrorists

In a meeting with Fatah Party leaders on Sunday, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas declared that he would not stop paying salaries to convicted terrorists and their families, despite new Israeli legislation withholding funds in the amount paid to killers and attackers from taxes collected for the P.A. Read more

PLO-Hamas referendum could boost Trump peace plans

There is little hope that reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah will end a decade of bitter internecine feuding which has seen a parallel entrenchment of territorial divisions between them in Gaza and the West Bank…writes David Singer. Read more

Who’s blocking a two-state solution?

Does Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas want peace with Israel?…asks Lawrence Grossman/JNS.org Read more