BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip - Israeli aircraft struck armed Palestinians in northern Gaza early Friday after the bloodiest day of clashes in the strip since Israel withdrew last summer.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A Hamas activist and three relatives were killed Friday in an explosion at his home in Gaza City, hospital officials said. Palestinians said the house was hit by an Israeli tank shell.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Marking 40 years of Israeli occupation, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned Tuesday that his people are on the verge of civil war. He said the infighting is perhaps worse than living under Israeli military rule.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Palestinians' defiant Hamas-led government sent a new militant force into the streets of Gaza on Wednesday, disregarding President Mahmoud Abbas' order banning the creation of the security body and raising the stakes in their deepening power struggle.

JERUSALEM - Israel agreed Saturday to release $100 million in frozen funds to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and ease West Bank travel restrictions - goodwill gestures that revived hopes for a resumption of peace talks after years of hostility and distrust.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Hamas-led Palestinian government called for a cease-fire in its violent two-week standoff with Israel but stopped short Saturday of offering to release an Israeli soldier held by Hamas militants. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected the proposal by Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinian militants on Wednesday released the last four foreigners they had seized a day earlier to protest an Israeli military raid on a West Bank prison. Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the raid an "unforgivable crime."

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli aircraft fired missiles at the Palestinian prime minister's office early Sunday, just hours after a Palestinian official said the soldier whose abduction sent Israeli troops into Gaza is alive and in stable condition.

EREZ CROSSING, Israel - Israel allowed several hundred Palestinians with foreign passports to flee Gaza on Friday, even as its warplanes bombed a mosque it said was used to store weapons and destroyed homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Hamas won a huge majority in parliamentary elections as Palestinian voters rejected the longtime rule of the Fatah Party, throwing the future of Mideast peacemaking into question.

GAZA CTIY, Gaza Strip - Israeli forces entered a northern Gaza town early Saturday and seized a local Hamas leader from his home amid heavy fighting with Palestinian gunmen, Hamas militants and a Palestinian health official said. The wanted man's 14-year-old daughter was killed in the clashes.

WASHINGTON - President Bush sought Thursday to boost the flagging Mideast peace process by voicing fresh optimism about the creation of a Palestinian state. He said he remained confident that the definition of a state for the Palestinian people would be reached before he leaves office in January.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday laid out his most specific demands for the borders of a future independent state, calling for a full Israeli withdrawal from all territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

JERUSALEM - Israel on Wednesday declared the Gaza Strip an "enemy entity" and said it would cut back power and fuel supplies to the Hamas-ruled territory, enraging Palestinians as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began a peacemaking mission to the region.

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Monday he would welcome newly elected Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to the White House, extending an invitation he refused to offer to the late Yasser Arafat.

Former President Jimmy Carter denounced Israel’s plan to build a fence in Palestinian territories as a land grab rather than a security measure at a Tempe book signing Tuesday, as protesters with ethnic ties to the Middle East conflict squared off outside.

OTTAWA - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested Tuesday that Israel must loosen controls at border crossings to allow freer passage for Palestinians and economic development in areas that would one day be an independent Palestinian state.

March 14, 2005

WASHINGTON - President Bush praised Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' steps toward peace and democracy on Thursday and predicted that Palestinians will reject candidates of the militant group Hamas in upcoming parliamentary elections.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel launched an airstrike on Gaza early Wednesday after its troops clashed with Hamas militants who fired mortars into Israel, leaving six Palestinians dead. It was the first battle since a June truce mostly quieted violence in the volatile territory.

CAIRO, Egypt - Efforts to form a Palestinian government acceptable to the West have gone "back to zero," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday, a day after Hamas said a coalition government that recognizes Israel is unacceptable.

WASHINGTON - Declaring a "moment of choice" in the Middle East, President Bush said Monday he would call Israel, the Palestinians and others in the region to a peace conference aimed at restarting stalled talks and moving faster toward a Palestinian state.