Word: gaza
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...terrorist hunters were feeling fairly satisfied with themselves. On Saturday, Aug. 19, after a 10-day chase, Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip finally cornered and trapped Wa'el Nassar, a member of the radical Islamist group Hamas, who they suspected was planning a suicide bombing in Israel. Later that night, the Israelis captured 10 members of a Hamas cell in the West Bank, including, they believed, the mastermind of a bus bombing in the city of Ramat Gan on July 24. The sweep also led to the seizure of three ready-to-go bombs, a car fixed...
...Since January, both have cracked down hard on Hamas, making hundreds of arrests, sharing intelligence as never before and even conducting joint operations against the group. Israeli authorities had always doubted that Yasser Arafat, now the head of the Palestinian Authority that governs the self-rule enclaves in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho, was really willing to suppress the militants, but his actions this year have tended to resolve those doubts...
Hamas had its own reasons for a pause. In reaction to the suicide bombings, Israel had placed tough restrictions on Palestinian laborers entering the country each day for work, thereby causing massive unemployment in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. "As a result, the man in the street began to believe the military operations were responsible for his sufferings," says Ghazi Hamad, the editor of the Hamas newspaper al-Watan, which Arafat shut down three weeks ago. Public support is critically important to Hamas. Formed in 1988 as an offshoot of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood, it is committed...
...Ramat Gan counterpart, Labib Azzam, 22. Hamas' silence, activists say, was meant to conceal the identities of the bombers' accomplices. "We don't want Israeli security to know the circles from which we are operating," says Amjad, who is connected to the Hamas military wing in the Gaza Strip...
...peace process and on progress toward true Palestinian independence, and that is surely a signal accomplishment. The Palestinians, however, are wondering what kind of society that independence will bring them. "I need to feel improvements in my daily life," says Nabil Abu Muaileq, a civil engineer in Gaza City, "not just see big leaders on TV talking about it." Hisham Saleh, a butcher in the West Bank city of el-Bireh, pauses from his work and says, "Judging from what's happened in Gaza and Jericho, I expect no improvement in our lives when the Palestinian Authority comes here...