Tzipi Livni

RAMALLAH, West Bank - -Two weeks after a Palestinian prisoner died of cancer in an Israeli jail, provoking violent protests in the West Bank, Israel released a critically ill Palestinian prisoner who had served 11 years of a 14-year-sentence. Muhammad Taj, 43, from the West Bank town of Toubas, was admitted to intensive care at the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah immediately after his release Thursday. Doctors there diagnosed his condition as “very critical.” Taj suffers from lung failure and has difficulty breathing.

Palestinian militants fired two rockets at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, breaching a cease-fire for a second time. The truce, reached with Egyptian mediation between Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls the strip, has largely held since it took effect June 19, but sporadic violations by other groups are threatening to unravel it, much like previous agreements.

President Shimon Peres told parliament on Monday that he had consulted with all of Israel's political parties and found there was no choice but to hold elections. Peres' announcement came a day after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni abandoned an attempt to cobble together a new ruling coalition. He said no other lawmaker was capable of forming a government.

A missile from an Israeli aircraft struck a car in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, killing a Palestinian militant and further straining a truce. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, one of three candidates to become prime minister in Feb. 10 elections and an architect of the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, ruled out negotiating with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. "Terror must be fought with force and lots of force," she said. "Therefore we will strike Hamas."

Iranian leaders pose the biggest threat to the world's values because they "speak proudly" of their wish to destroy Israel and pursue weapons to achieve that objective, Israel's foreign minister said Wednesday. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said at the annual United Nations General Assembly session that the international community must stand up against Iran, which she said was pursuing the weapons to destroy Israel, a reference to Tehran's suspect nuclear program.

Wrapping up a Middle East visit to push forward Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday criticized Israel's continued building in West Bank settlements. The Jerusalem municipality said it had approved plans for building 600 new homes in Pisgat Zeev, a neighborhood built on West Bank land annexed to the city after the 1967 Middle East War.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to Israel on Sunday for the third time in six weeks, seeking to nudge the Israeli and Palestinian sides before an upcoming U.S.-sponsored peace conference. But after a day of meetings with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Rice acknowledged that her two-day visit was unlikely to get the two sides to agree on the joint pre-conference statement of goals that the U.S. has sought. "They're still working.

Elder statesman Shimon Peres secretly met the Palestinian Authority president in Jordan with the blessing of acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, ending a ban that followed the victory by the militant group Hamas in Palestinian elections, Israel said Monday. Olmert's office said the meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dealt only with economic matters. However, Israel TV's Channel 2 said other issues were discussed.

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Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided Thursday to fire two hard-line government ministers, officials said, a move that would give him a slim Cabinet majority for his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sharon summoned the two ministers of the far-right National Union Party, Avigdor Lieberman and Benny Elon, for a meeting today to deliver the dismissal notices.