Zahar says the Strip-based group is "committed to the calm" experienced since Cast Lead; tells supporters that the quiet allows the group to rearm.
A Kassam rocket was shot into Israeli territory early Friday evening.
The rocket exploded in an open field near Ashkelon. No injuries or damage was reported.
Christine Logan disappeared on Saturday, when she and a Jerusalem-area friend were stabbed by assailants while hiking at an archaeological site; her friend, Susan Kaye Wilson, was hospitalized in moderate condition.
Mortars hit open areas in western Negev, south of Ashkelon day after IDF kills five terrorists in Gaza
The Air Force bombed a cell of rocket launchers in the central Gaza Strip Saturday night, killing five men preparing to fire rockets at Israel. The IDF says direct hits were identified.
The five men were apparently members of Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees.
The strike followed a relatively violent month in the south. Two weeks ago the Air Force bombed three Hamas targets in Gaza, in response to mortar shell fire at Israel.
One Israeli man, the security officer at a community belonging to Eshkol Regional Council, was injured in an attack. No injuries were reported on the Palestinian side.
Town's 2,750 hotel rooms are booked solid for Christmas week and expected turnout for Christmas week up strongly from 70,000 last year.
Continue reading at the Jerusalem Post...
IDF tank fire kills two Palestinians approaching security fence; soldier seriously wounded when shots fired at army force combing area inside Strip. Earlier, Qassam rocket fired from Gaza towards Negev; no injuries or damage reported
Al Quds al-Arabi reports that PLO, Fatah plan to push for a unilateral abrogation of all Oslo and Road Map commitments, including fighting terror, in response to failed peace talks.
Ban Ki-moon and Catherine Ashton criticize Netanyahu gov't for not "heeding the call of the int'l community" to extend settlement freeze; Barak calls resumption of talks an "urgent necessity."
Fatah: "Great Intifadeh" is Legitimate Right of Palestinians
Ramallah – PNN - A statement released by the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) said that the option of organized popular resistance was the legitimate right of the Palestinian people and that the lessons learned from last “great intifadeh” will guide people against the Israeli occupation and settlements.
The statement commemorated the 23rd anniversary of the beginning of the First Intifadeh in 1987 and the building of national institutions to protect Palestinian national rights. Fatah considers the First Intifadeh a success in bringing the Palestinian issue to the forefront of international concern.
Palestinians should be credited, according to the statement, with bringing the word “intifadeh” into the “the lexicon of humanity.”
The announcement comes on the heels of international recognition by Brazil and Argentina of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.
A Qassam rocket exploded Monday evening in an open field near Ashkelon. No injuries or damage were reported.
A siren was sounded throughout the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council followed by explosive sounds.
Two weeks ago, a false alarm stirred panic in Ashkelon, following months of calm. At first the IDF Spokesperson's Office reported that Palestinians fired a rocket toward Israel, but later it turned out to be a false alarm.
The last genuine alarm in Ashkelon was heard in mid-September, when a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip and exploded in an industrial area in the city's south.
Police Insp.-Gen. David Cohen said that the two arson suspects arrested earlier in the day are not linked to the main fire on the Carmel Mountain, at a press conference Friday evening.
Cohen said that investigators have determined that the large fire, which is raging in the Carmel, spread from a single ignition point. He added that the cause of the fire, either arson or negligence, would probably be determined by Saturday.
The police inspector-general said that there were, however, a number of suspected arson attacks in the North, but that the cause of the large Carmel fire was still unknown.
Police have said that additional fires in Kiryat Bialik and Tivon were both caused by arson.
A separate wildfire was reported Friday afternoon in a field near Route 70, in the southern Carmel mountains near Bat Shlomo (south of Haifa). Route 70 was closed to traffic in both directions.
Earlier on Friday, police found a bike, a bag, and a wig inside near a fire center in Tzur Shalom, leading them to believe that the fire was caused by an arsonist or arsonists.
Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told the Post that there are 3 fire centers - Tzur Shalom, the Atlit - Tirat Hacarmel area, and the Carmel hillsides. In one, Tzur Shalom, north of Haifa, "we located suspicious items pointing to arson. As for the other two major fires, it is too early and the incidents are to large in scale to know their causes at this stage." The death toll in the fires rose to 42 on Friday, according to Army Radio.
Forty people were kiled on Thursday as a huge brushfire continued to rage across the Carmel Mountains in northern Israel, killing and injuring dozens, among them prison guards and firemen.
Some 13,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the north and Israel called for international aid as the fire blazed out of control, fanned by easterly winds following a month of near record temperatures for the time of year.
