Last Israeli troops leave Gaza Strip

May 3rd, 2009 GAZA - Two Palestinians were killed and four wounded in a series of Israeli army airstrikes on the border between southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, medics and security sources said. The security sources of Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip said that Israeli jets targeted three underground tunnels Saturday by air-to-ground missiles near the town of Rafah.

March 5th, 2009 GAZA - Israeli jets Wednesday evening launched a missile in northern Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinians and wounding five, medics and witnesses said. Gaza emergency chief Mo'aweya Hassanein told reporters that two Palestinians were killed and five injured in an Israeli airstrike on a local car that drove in northern Gaza Strip.

February 13th, 2009 TEL AVIV - Two Palestinians died Friday in separate Israeli military attacks into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian sources. One militant died in an Israeli rocket attack near Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

February 1st, 2009 GAZA - Israel launched a series of airstrikes Sunday night on several targets in the Gaza Strip, including a police station and the border area between Gaza and Egypt, witnesses said. Residents of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, which borders Egypt, said that Israeli F-16 jets dropped at least four bombs at the border area between their town and Egypt, with no injuries reported.

January 28th, 2009 GAZA - Eight Palestinians were injured Thursday as an Israeli army aircraft fired a missile in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, medics and witnesses said. The witnesses said that one air-to-ground missile hit a man on a motorcycle in a busy street in the town, seriously wounding the man and seven other people near Nasser Hospital.

January 19th, 2009 GAZA - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Gaza Tuesday afternoon to evaluate the ground situation following the Israeli military offensive in the salient. His convoy crossed into the Gaza Strip through Erez border crossing between northern Gaza Strip and Israel.

January 17th, 2009 TEL AVIV/GAZA - Israeli troops came under fire by a group of Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip Sunday, only hours after the beginning of a unilateral ceasefire declared by Israel, an Israeli army spokeswoman said. The troops informed Israeli armoured units and air force which then shot at and hit the Palestinians, said the spokeswoman.

January 17th, 2009 TEL AVIV - Israel's unilaterally-declared cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip entered into effect at 2 a.m. (0000 GMT) Sunday, in accordance with the announcement by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert several hours earlier.

January 17th, 2009 JERUSALEM - The Israeli army Sunday evening began withdrawing its troops from the Gaza Strip, hours after Hamas announced its one-week ceasefire plan. Footage of the Israeli TV Channel 10 showed that Israeli tanks and soldiers were moving towards the border from inside the Palestinian enclave.

January 6th, 2009 JERUSALEM - Hamas leader and de-facto Palestinian prime minister in Gaza Ismail Haniya Tuesday issued a statement from his hideout, seeking to boost morale in Gaza and vowing its people would not 'surrender' to the Israeli ground troops operating in the Strip. 'The ground aggression on the Gaza Strip is proof that the Occupation (Israel) has failed to force the population of the Gaza Strip to surrender,' he said in the statement sent to reporters.

January 3rd, 2009 GAZA - At least 50 people have been killed since Israel launched its ground operation Saturday evening on the Gaza Strip, officials here said Sunday. Mo'aweya Hassanein, chief of emergency and ambulance services in Palestine Health Ministry, said there could be more fatalities as medical teams could not reach some of the areas that are under heavy Israeli fire.

January 3rd, 2009 TEL AVIV - Israeli ground forces moved in the northern Gaza Strip Saturday evening, on the eighth day of a massive Israeli offensive against militants in the salient. The ground operation was preceded by an artillery barrage which lasted for hours, and reports said the troops were backed by air support.

January 3rd, 2009 RAMALLAH - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Saturday for the UN Security Council to hold an urgent meeting to stop the Israeli air and ground offensives on the Gaza Strip. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said in a statement that Abbas called on the Security Council to convene immediately 'to halt and stop the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.' 'President Abbas intensified his contacts with Arab and foreign countries to stop the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip without any preconditions,' Erekat said.

January 2nd, 2009 GAZA CITY - An Israeli airstrike on a mosque in the northern Gaza Strip late Saturday afternoon killed 11 people and wounded 50, 24 of them seriously, Palestinian sources reported. An Israeli military spokesman had no immediate comment on the report, which comes on the eighth day of an Israeli offensive, mainly conducted through aerial attacks on the Gaza Strip.

December 26th, 2008 GAZA - At least 120 Palestinians, most of them Hamas security members, were killed Saturday when Israeli airplanes launched simultaneous strikes across the Gaza Strip, Hamas sources said. Tawfiq Jaber, chief of Hamas police, was among the dead in the series of strikes targetting almost all Hamas-run security headquarters and training camps of its military wing.