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GAZA, Aug 16 (Reuters) - With car tyres, rocks and mounds of sand as seats, Palestinians of all ages have been enjoying a rare trip to the movies at a big-screen event on the Gaza beachfront. Hosted by "The Sea is Ours" cafe, the screenings were designed to promote issues of culture and history approved by the conservative Islamist Hamas government. "We can get movies on mobile phones, but this is something new and is nice," said 15-year-old Hadeel Hejji. Ali Mhana, 35, the cafe owner and local playwright, said he had never been to a regular cinema. People are here all the time, including children, who get attracted by the sound and image and come to watch the movies," Mhana said.

Persons: Ferdinand, Mohammad Zidan, lolled, Hejji, Ali Mhana, Mhana, Nidal Almughrabi, Alison Williams Organizations: Thomson Locations: GAZA, Gaza

GAZA, Aug 14 (Reuters) - A heatwave and worsening power cuts in Gaza have left some of those living in the overcrowded Palestinian enclave struggling to breathe. Power cuts, which are unpredictable at the best of times, now last for around 12 hours a day instead of 10 as demand for air conditioning soars. "Power cuts deprive patients of their right to regular oxygen ventilation and that pushes patients to keep visiting hospital," Haj said. Alongside cases of acquired pulmonary fibrosis, Gaza health officials say more than 300 people in the enclave were born with cystic fibrosis, which causes the lungs and digestive system to become clogged with sticky mucus. Abdel-Majeed Al-Sbakhi, who has diabetes as well as cystic fibrosis, was among those forced in hospital by the heat.

Persons: Ismail Nashwan, Mohammad Al, Haj, Gaza's Shuhada, Majeed Al, Sbakhi, Nidal al, Philippa Fletcher Organizations: Hamas, Aqsa, Thomson Locations: GAZA, Gaza, Egypt, Israel, Gaza's, Gaza's Shuhada Al

[1/5] Majdi El-Tattar, a man with disability from Gaza trains children to swim as he became a high-in-demand swimming coach, in Gaza City August 5, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu MustafaGAZA, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Majdi El-Tattar was just nine years old when he lost his leg in an accident. Now he is an inspiration to aspiring swimmers in Gaza - as a qualified swimming coach who runs his own school. "I developed my skills and that enabled me to start a swimming school," Tattar told Reuters as a few dozen of his students trained in the water. Earlier this month, the U.S.-based Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) brought together 120 Gaza children who have upper and lower limb amputations, into a summer camp.

Persons: Abu, Tattar, Gazans, Saed, Nidal Almughrabi, Angus MacSwan Organizations: REUTERS, Reuters, Palestinian Swimming Academy, International Committee, Assalama Charitable Society, Palestine Children's Relief, Thomson Locations: Gaza, Gaza City, Abu Mustafa GAZA, Israel, U.S

[1/3] A Palestinian, Mustafa Abdou, repairs a fan in his shop amid a heatwave at the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, July 25, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed SalemGAZA, July 30 (Reuters) - While soaring temperatures across the Middle East are causing discomfort for many, Gaza electrical appliance repairman Mustafa Abdou is enjoying a boom in business amid surging demand for electric fans. Temperatures have risen above 38 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in Gaza and frequent power cuts have pushed more and more people to adapt their fans to work by battery. Despite being surrounded by fans, he was sweating as he spoke because his own fan couldn't work due to a power cut. More than 2.3 million people live in the Gaza Strip, the narrow strip of land squeezed between Egypt and Israel.

Persons: Mustafa Abdou, Mohammed Salem, Abdou, Nidal Almughrabi, Susan Fenton Organizations: REUTERS, Thomson Locations: Gaza City, Mohammed Salem GAZA, Gaza, Gaza Beach, Egypt, Israel

GAZA, July 24 (Reuters) - Archaeologists working on a 2,000-year-old Roman cemetery discovered in Gaza last year have found at least 125 tombs, most with skeletons still largely intact, and two rare lead sarcophaguses, the Palestinian Ministry of Antiquities said. In the past, local archaeologists reburied findings for lack of funding but French organisations have helped excavate this site, discovered in February last year by a construction crew working on an Egyptian-funded housing project. "It is the first time in Palestine we have discovered a cemetery that has 125 tombs, and it is the first time in Gaza we have discovered two sarcophaguses made of lead," Fadel Al-A’utul, an expert at the French School of Biblical and Archeological Research, told Reuters at the site. Gaza has been under an Israel-Egyptian economic blockade since 2007 when the Islamist militant group Hamas, which opposes peace with Israel, took control. U.S.-brokered peace talks, aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, collapsed in 2014 and show no sign of revival.

Persons: Fadel, A'utul, Jamal Abu Reida, Nidal al, Philippa Fletcher Organizations: Palestinian Ministry of Antiquities, French School of, Archeological Research, Reuters, Urgance, Gaza's Antiquities Ministry, Hamas, West, Thomson Locations: GAZA, Gaza, Palestine, Israel, West Bank, East Jerusalem

[1/3] Palestinians walk in the street amid a heatwave and lengthy power cuts at Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, July 17, 2023. More than 2.3 million people live in a narrow strip of land squeezed between Egypt and Israel, suffering power cuts for up to 12 hours a day. Gaza residents are calling for the local generator to produce more power by operating the plant at full capacity. Thousands packed the beaches, escaping the heat and power cuts at home. Some homes and businesses use generators or solar panels, to overcome the lengthy power cuts.

Persons: Mohammed Salem, Abdel, Hamid Abdel, Israel, Jalal Ismail, Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah, Yasmin Fojo, Um Khattab, Nidal, Alexandra Hudson Organizations: REUTERS, Hamas, Reuters, Gaza Energy Authority, Palestinian Authority, Alexandra Hudson Our, Thomson Locations: Gaza City, Mohammed Salem GAZA, Gaza, Egypt, Israel

[1/4] Palestinian Madyan Helles works in his workshop as he turns wasted car tires into environment-friendly materials, in Gaza July 11, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu MustafaGAZA, July 17 (Reuters) - Madyan Helles collects waste car tyres and recycles them into materials that are used as a base layer for artificial grass at sports facilities as well as in agriculture in the impoverished Gaza Strip. "My project preserves the environment and helps reduce environment risks," Helles said, who hopes to expand his business beyond him working on his own. "It must get bigger and absorb all wasted tyres in Gaza Strip so that we can get rid of them safely and properly," he told Reuters. "We used to import rubber granules in the past for high prices, today they are available in Gaza.

Persons: Abu, Helles, Ubayda Nassar, Nassar, Nidal Almughrabi, Alison Williams Organizations: REUTERS, Gaza, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Gaza, Abu Mustafa GAZA, Gaza City

GAZA, July 16 (Reuters) - The Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers have been unable to pay salaries for 50,000 public sector workers, with officials in part blaming a delay in a monthly payroll grant from Qatar, a crucial aid donor to the impoverished Palestinian enclave. The salary crisis has sparked an unusual amount of criticism on social media in Gaza, including by some of Hamas' own employees. It currently pays $30 million per month in stipends for families, fuel for electricity, and to help pay public sector wages. Hamas officials say no salary aid has been received since just over half of a $5-million grant to support the May payroll. Public sector employees have not received full salaries since 2013.

Persons: Awni Al, Basha, Salama Marouf, Mahmoud Al, Andrew Mills, Nidal Almughrabi, Emelia Sithole Organizations: Qatar, Qatar’s International Media, Hamas, Public, Facebook, Thomson Locations: GAZA, Gaza, Qatar, Doha, Hamas Aqsa, Israel, Farra

[1/8] Palestinian refugee students attend an activity as part of "Fun Weeks" summer camps run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in a school in Beach refugee camp in Gaza City, July 11, 2023. The Palestine children, including those with disabilities, will over four weeks participate in a series of activities including greening, recycling, sports, drawing, handicrafts, and language learning, the agency said. UNRWA runs 284 schools in Gaza, serving at least 290,000 students. The activity creates around 3,000 short-term jobs for Gaza youth, UNRWA said. Established in 1949 following the first Arab-Israeli war, the agency provides public services including schools, primary healthcare, and humanitarian aid in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

Persons: Mohammed Salem, Thomas White, Joanna El, Halabi, Nidal Almughrabi, Devika Organizations: United Nations Relief, Works Agency, REUTERS, United Nations, Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA Affairs, Reuters, Gaza, UNRWA, West Bank, Thomson Locations: Beach, Gaza City, Mohammed Salem GAZA, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, East, Egypt, Jabalia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon

GAZA, July 3 (Reuters) - Walaa Hammad has found a niche repairing mobile phones from her home, offering services to other women in the conservative Palestinian enclave of Gaza who fear allowing male technicians access to their photos and social media accounts. "There is privacy for women to come and repair their mobile phones. Even men can come and ask me to fix the phones of their wives and sisters because they fear for their privacy and the photos," said Hammad. Egypt also restricts movement in and out of Gaza on its border. Those restrictions have devastated Gaza's economy and left many of its women, like Hammad, struggling to find work after graduating from college.

Persons: Walaa Hammad, Hammad, Wafaa Abu, Nidal, Gareth Jones Organizations: Creativity, Gaza, Thomson Locations: GAZA, Gaza, Israel, Egypt

[1/4] A Palestinian rides a cart drawn by a horse wearing a diaper, to keep the Gaza streets clean, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip June 5, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu MustafaGAZA, June 13 (Reuters) - On the crowded streets of Gaza, horse-drawn carts continue to carry goods and agricultural produce, providing a vital service but creating a sanitary problem that one group wants to solve with diaper-style bags to keep the roads clear of manure. As well as the smell and flies they attracts, piles of manure are an unsightly blight, said municipal sanitary worker Saher Khattab, who drives a horse-drawn cart to collect garbage. "We are keen to preserve a clean environment, keep our streets clean, and maintain a civilized situation," said Anwar Al-Ghawash, one of a group of activists promoting the initiative in Deir Al-Balah town in the southern Gaza Strip. Reporting by Nidal AlmughrabiOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Abu, Saher Khattab, Anwar Al, Nidal Organizations: REUTERS, Thomson Locations: Palestinian, Gaza, Deir Al, Abu Mustafa GAZA, Balah

[1/5] A Palestinian girl walks past a graffiti drawn by Palestinian artists on a house destroyed by Israel, in recent Israeli-Gaza fighting, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip June 8, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu MustafaGAZA, June 12 (Reuters) - Graffiti artists in Gaza have painted murals on the remains of houses destroyed in an Israeli missile strike during cross-border fighting in May. Israel killed six senior Islamic Jihad commanders and said it destroyed a number of military installations. In Israel, two people - an Israeli woman and a Palestinian labourer - were killed by Palestinian rocket fire in Israel. "One missile destroyed a neighbourhood and destroyed the lives of ten families who used to live here."

Persons: Abu, Hussein Abu Sadeq, Mohammad Thuraya, Nidal Almughrabi, William Maclean Organizations: REUTERS, Hamas, Jihad, Islamic, Thomson Locations: Israel, Gaza, Deir Al, Abu Mustafa GAZA, Deir, Egypt, Iranian, Israeli, Palestinian

[1/5] A lion is seen inside an enclosure at NAMA Zoo in Gaza June 1, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed SalemGAZA, June 6 (Reuters) - Large paintings of a bear, an elephant and a giraffe decorate the outer walls of NAMA Zoo in Gaza City, but none of these wild creatures is represented live among those caged inside. There were once six zoos in Gaza, a narrow coastal enclave which has been closed off behind security walls since 2007. The original animals at the zoo were smuggled through tunnels from Egypt over a decade ago. Gaza lacks the medical facilities to treat animals like lions and tigers.

Persons: Mohammed Salem, Mahmoud Al, Sultan, Fouad Saleh, Nidal Almughrabi, Bernadette Baum Organizations: REUTERS, Thomson Locations: Gaza, Mohammed Salem GAZA, NAMA Zoo, Gaza City, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, South Africa

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alluded to Israel's calculations at work in dealing with Hamas in Gaza. "The gap between Hamas and Islamic Jihad is rooted in the fact that Hamas has a political programme and governing authority, whereas the Jihad has neither," he said. However, Israeli officials say Islamic Jihad would not be able to fire rockets without approval from Hamas. An Islamic Jihad official offered a similar line. "That's why they (Hamas) focus their attacks in the West Bank," the regional diplomat said.

The caller was an Israeli officer who ordered them to evacuate the house five minutes before they bombed it. The cousin, Hussam Nabhan, 45, tried to stall with the officer, telling him the house included disabled people, but it was all in vain, he said. "The house was the girls' shelter, they had got a disabled toilet, wheelchairs, a bed to sleep. "How am I going to carry her after the wheeler was gone, also the (healthy) mattresses were gone," she added. Its borders are sealed off by neighbouring Israel and Egypt, citing security concerns with Hamas, which runs the territory.

In areas of southern Israel around Gaza, schools were still closed on Sunday and many of the thousands of residents who had been evacuated had yet to return. "It's no simple matter to come back from such a situation," Gadi Yarkoni, mayor for several Israeli towns on the Gaza border, told radio station 103 FM. Palestinian health officials said 33 people, including women and children as well as Islamic Jihad fighters, were killed in Gaza. Israeli forces had "successfully concluded five days of fighting the Islamic Jihad terrorist group," he said in the televised remarks, without mentioning a ceasefire agreement. "We dealt a serious blow to Islamic Jihad (but) we have not solved the Gaza problem.

In 2014, during a previous round of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, the Bashir's home was also hit. "They destroyed our homes before and we rebuilt it, and this time we will rebuild it too," she added. According to officials from Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, the latest round of Israeli air strikes, which began on Tuesday, have destroyed 15 residential blocks, containing more than 50 apartments. "Prior to these strikes, the Israeli Defence Forces took every feasible measure to mitigate harm to civilians as much as possible," the Israeli military said. "We stress that the residential blocks destroyed by the occupation were inhabited by civilians.

Islamic Jihad also confirmed the agreement. Israel launched the latest round of airstrikes in the early hours of Tuesday, announcing that it was targeting Islamic Jihad commanders who had planned attacks in Israel. During the five days of the campaign, Israel killed six senior Islamic Jihad commanders and destroyed a number of military installations. At least 10 civilians, including women and children, were also killed in Gaza during the fighting, and two people - an Israeli woman and a Palestinian labourer - were killed by Palestinian rocket fire in Israel. Islamic Jihad spurns coexistence with Israel and preaches its destruction.

Summary Death of Palestinian hunger striker triggered fightingPalestinian militants fired rockets at IsraelIsraeli jets struck in GazaJewish Power party calls Israel's response 'weak'Adnan had been on hunger strike for 87 daysGAZA/JERUSALEM, May 3 (Reuters) - A truce along the Israel-Gaza border appeared to be holding on Wednesday morning following a brief bout of fighting triggered by the death of a jailed Palestinian hunger striker. Adnan had been on hunger strike for 87 days as he awaited trial on security charges. Palestinian leaders accused Israel of causing the death of Adnan, the first Palestinian hunger striker to die in Israeli custody in more than 30 years. In Gaza, armed Palestinian factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the rocket salvoes fired towards Israel, where one person was seriously injured. [1/5] Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli air strike, in Deir al-Balah town in the central Gaza Strip, May 3.

GAZA, April 28 (Reuters) - The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said on Thursday it would stop receiving fundraising via the crypto currency bitcoin, a method it has used for years, citing an increase in "hostile" activity against donors. Hamas had endorsed crypto as a fundraising method for years, previously developing sophisticated tactics to solicit bitcoin donations. Iran has also always been a major financial and military backer of the group, according to officials from both sides. Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Britain and the European Union. In 2020, the U.S. broke up efforts by the military wing of Hamas, al-Qaeda and Islamic State to raise funds via cryptocurrency, seizing some $2 million worth of crypto.

"We have seen things we had never seen before. Sudan has long been a popular destination for Palestinian students, attracted by relatively low tuition fees and the ease of obtaining a visa. "My son told me he and his friends had to walk out of the place in the dark and they saw bodies scattered in the streets," Moussa told Reuters. Speaking by phone aboard the bus leaving Khartoum on Tuesday, his son Mohammad told Reuters his future was in jeopardy. "To be able to finish my studies, war has to stop," said Mohammad, who was in the final year of his course.

[1/5] A Palestinian Christian man Ehab Ayyad offers dates and water to Muslims held up in traffic or getting late for home to break their fast during Ramadan, in Gaza City April 12, 2023. For those unlucky enough to miss breaking the fast altogether as they stand in solid traffic, Ehab Ayyad is a welcome sight. The Christian man from Gaza offers dates and water to Muslims held up in traffic or late home to break their fast, in keeping with the Prophet's tradition. Five years ago, Ayyad began by offering neighbours dates and water, the first thing Muslims normally eat when they end their fast at sunset, and decided to make the offer general. "On our holidays, our Muslim neighbours come to visit and congratulate us, and we do the same on their holidays," Ayyad said.

Salvoes of rockets from Lebanon and Gaza struck north and south in Israel over the past day and the Israeli military replied with air strikes. Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, praised the shooting attack but stopped short of claiming responsibility. [1/3] Israeli troops stand guard at a shooting attack scene in the Jordan Valley, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank April 7,2023. With the international-led peace process long moribund, Palestinians' hopes of creating an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, have faded. Israel's new hard-right government is set on expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and includes members who rule out a Palestinian state.

Some Arabs said they hoped the crisis would lead to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political demise. Others expressed hope of more far-reaching consequences for Israel, which fought numerous wars with Arab adversaries after its establishment in 1948 and occupies land the Palestinians seek for a state. The sentiment was echoed by Mohammad Abdullatif in Syria, from which Israel captured the Golan Heights in a 1967 war. Gaza political analyst Talal Okal said the crisis had brought a sense of relief among Palestinians. "But there is also a fear, they may carry out military adventures or wars to escape the internal crisis."

[1/5] Palestinians relatives of Sabreen Abu Jazar, who died when a boat carrying migrants sank offshore Greece, mourn in her family home in Gaza Strip March 3, 2023. After leaving Gaza in February, via Egypt, Sabreen flew to Turkey where she met her husband, who had migrated to Belgium years ago. "I celebrated her as a bride, now she's returned to me in a coffin," said her mother-in-law Buthayna Abu Jazar. In an effort to promote security along its Gaza border, Israel offers some 20,000 permits to allow Gazans to work in Israel. In Gaza, Hamas says a permanent solution for unemployment is beyond its ability alone.

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