Middle East, Israel | featured news

Hamas said a truce had been reached between Israel and Gaza, though Israel couched the news by saying an agreement was close but not a done deal. Hamas official Ayman Taha said the truce would go into effect early Wednesday, according to Reuters news service.

President Barack Obama is sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Middle East in hopes that she can help mediate an end to bloody conflict in the region.Click to Continue »

Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers traded fire and tough cease-fire proposals Monday, and threatened to escalate their border conflict if diplomacy fails.

The olive orchards and wheat fields lining the Gaza Strip border with Israel were always sparsely populated, but on Monday the area was a virtual no-man’s land. Fearing an Israeli ground invasion of the coastal strip, hundreds of families have fled.

Israel maintains air strikes on Gaza and militants continue to fire rockets into Israel as the fifth day of unrest becomes the deadliest so far.

President Barack Obama said Sunday an incursion by Israel's forces into the Gaza Strip could only deepen its death toll, cautioning against an escalation even as he defended the Jewish state's right to defend itself. Obama also warned Palestinians the crisis could crush peace hopes for years.

An Obama aide says the U.S. and Israel both want an end to the rocket fire that's coming from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Israel continued its aerial assault on targets in the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip early Saturday, launching 200 airstrikes aimed at smuggling tunnels under the enclave's border with Egypt and what the Israeli military said were four Hamas buildings, including the group's headquarters, a police station and a commander's house. Witnesses reported that the offices of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh were destroyed.

Palestinian militants for the first time targeted the holy city of Jerusalem on Friday with rocket fire as Israel and the Islamist group Hamas inched closer to all-out war.

The head of the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has been killed during Israeli air and naval strikes in the Gaza Strip. Ahmed Said Khalil al-Jabari and another Hamas official died when the car they were in was hit in Gaza City. It follows a wave of rocket attacks against Israel from the territory.