On Friday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat declared that Hamas, the Islamist organization that rules Gaza, is not a terrorist organization. Speaking at a conference held at the Masarat think tank in Ramallah, an institution dedicated to Palestinian reconciliation, Erekat said, “Hamas is a Palestinian movement, is not and will...

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Spokesmen for Hamas hailed the apparent victory of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in municipal elections. One Hamas official, Salah Al-Bardawil, said: The reason behind our happiness at the victory of [Turkish premier Recep] Erdogan and his party is his closeness to the Palestinian cause because our assessment of...

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The Palestinian Hamas faction is reportedly making something of a comeback in territories long dominated by its rival Fatah – staging rallies in the West Bank and in the Jerusalem campus of the Palestinian Al-Quds University – after a series of bad geopolitical gambles had left the terror group economically and...

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DefenseNews recently highlighted the capabilities of Iran’s navies, the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy (IRGCN). While neither navy is a major threat in conventional terms both are threats, especially in the Persian Gulf region, due to their “ability for irregular warfare.” A...

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Israel’s enemies – led by Hezbollah and Hamas – will possess precision guided missiles within five years, according to the country’s former prime minister, Ehud Barak. “We will continue to see many more missiles, a lot more accuracy, and within five years the missile will reach a maximum level of...

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While the Arabic media is focusing on many of the key rifts between Arab states, regional leaders used this week’s Arab League Summit in Kuwait City to unite in their calls for “Jerusalem” to be the capital of a Palestinian state and for Israel to stop its assault on the...

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Recent days have been marked by an upswing in violent incidents in the West Bank, and the timing raising concerns that the Palestinian Authority (PA)  has once again chosen to couple its rejectionism at the negotiating table with a threat of violence. The incidents included a Bethlehem firebomb thrown at the...

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The Israeli military’s discovery of an underground “terror tunnel” stretching from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip deep into the Jewish state has deepened concerns that a U.S.-backed initiative to secure a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians may be deeply complicated – if not rendered untenable – by the...

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Iran reacted angrily on Sunday to a Canadian court ruling ordering the seizure of millions of dollars of Iranian property and bank assets. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said the ruling had “no legal value,” with the Iranian news agency Tasnim explaining A court in Canada’s Ontario has recently...

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Veteran Israeli national security correspondent Yaakov Lappin this week conveyed what he described as “recent Israeli intelligence assessments” concluding that Hamas is steadily moving to reinvigorate its strained relationship with Iran, amid broader signals that the Palestinian terror group is desperate to halt what has become its worst economic crisis in roughly a decade....

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