Tel Aviv - Israel will not open its crossing points into the Gaza Strip until Thursday afternoon, after closing them following the launch of a rocket into southern Israel from the salient late Tue

Ramallah - Mahmoud Darwish, who advocated for Palestinian statehood in his poems known throughout the Middle East, died Saturday after undergoing a heart operation in the United States, Palestinian television reported.

The 67-year-old had undergone an operation in Houston on Wednesday and his condition had worsened. He had had two previous such operations.

Darwish was known as one of the most outstanding poets in the Arab world and as the poetic voice of the Palestinians. His 30 volumes of poetry have been translated into 
30 languages.

Gaza - The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas should rule in the West Bank in addition to the Gaza Strip which it currently controls, a senior Hamas leader said Saturday.

"Hamas movement must rule in Gaza and the occupied West Bank according to the results of the elections," said Mahmoud Zahar, former Hamas foreign minister in Gaza.

His remarks were made in response to Western support for the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces currently control the West Bank.

Headquartered in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Fatah forces have been cracking down on the Islamic movement's supporters there, Hamas says.

Tel Aviv - Israeli is preparing to transfer to the West Bank Palestinian Fatah activists who fled internecine fighting in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Defence Ministry said Monday.

The move comes amid fierce inter-Palestinian clashes in the Strip between Fatah and Hamas, which administers the enclave. It overturns a previous decision made at the request of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and West Bank-based acting Premier Salam Fayyad to return those fleeing to the salient.

Gaza - The death toll rose to nine in bloody clashes between Fatah and Hamas supporters by early Sunday, as an estimated 120 to 150 Fatah supporters fled Gaza across Israel to the West Bank.

The gunbattles in eastern Gaza City's al-Sheja'eya neighbourhood erupted after Hamas security forces attempted to arrest members of the Fatah-allied Helles clan.

The current Fatah-Hamas tensions are the worst since Hamas' Gaza take-over one year ago. Many of the dead were Hamas supporters. An estimated 80 persons were injured, Palestinian medical sources said.

The Minister of Interior in the deposed Hamas-led government in Gaza, Said Siam, told a news conference that the Helles clan members violated the law and his police detained several suspects.

Ramallah/Gaza - The Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip continued their back-and-forth arrests of top party leaders Friday, capping a week of detentions sparked by a car explosion in the Gaza Strip that killed five Hamas militants and a girl.

Hamas blamed Fatah for the blast; Fatah said the explosion was due to internal conflicts within the Islamist organization.

Although President Mahmoud Abbas told his security forces Thursday night to free all Hamas supporters taken in the West Bank over the past week, sources close to the detained activists told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Friday morning that they were unaware of anyone being released.