Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have cast their ballots in the first municipal elections in decades in this part of the Occupied Territories. Thousands of Palestinians on Thursday turned up at voting booths in 10 districts in the Gaza Strip, including the northern town of Bait Hanun, devastated by Israeli incursions. The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which for the first time has candidates running in Gaza, is expected to sweep the elections. Ahmad al-Kurd, director of the Islamic Benevolence Society and Hamas candidate for the district of Dair al-Balah, said he is confident of his party’s success and that the elections will bring change. Laila El-Haddad reports from Gaza. Read more about Gazans vote in municipal polls 

The Israeli army has renewed plans to demolish hundreds of Palestinian homes in Rafah at the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli media. Army sources say the purpose of the demolitions is to create an artificial canal to prevent Palestinians from digging underground tunnels which could be used to smuggle weapons into Gaza from Egypt. A report published in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Wednesday said Israeli officials were worried the demolitions would trigger widespread international indignation, especially in light of the gradual restoration of calm and the imminent ceasefire. Read more about Israel plans to raze more Gaza homes 

Israeli occupation soldiers have shot and killed a three-year-old girl inside her home in central Gaza, eyewitnesses and medical sources said. Rahma Abu Shamas was reportedly inside her home in Dair al-Balah in central Gaza on Wednesday when a bullet struck her in the head, killing her instantly. Israeli soldiers manning an army watchtower at the nearby colony of Kfar Darom opened machinegun fire randomly on Palestinian homes around dawn on Wednesday. An Israeli army spokesman acknowledged the killings, saying the army was looking into the “incident”. The Israeli-state run radio, Kol Yisrael said no Palestinian fighters were present in the area when the shooting took place. Read more about Israeli troops kill Palestinian girl in the Gaza Strip 

There are serious concerns in Israel that the new Likud-Labour coalition government may not survive intense pressure from the extreme right within Likud, Ariel Sharon’s own party. On Monday, 13 Likud lawmakers in the Knesset voted against the new coalition government, forcing the Israeli prime minister to rely on the centre-left Yahad and the Arab parties to bail him out from certain government collapse. According to an Israeli commentator, the split in Likud places the Sharon-Peres government in real jeopardy and might very well spell its end. Read more about Sharon coalition on borrowed time 

At least seven Palestinian refugees stranded at the Egypt-Rafah border crossing closed by Israel for the past six weeks have succumbed to various illnesses. The dead men were part of 7000 people stranded somewhere between Cairo and the Rafah border crossing - the only crossing they can use to travel in and out of Gaza - since an explosion in a tunnel beneath the border killed six Israeli occupation soldiers on 12 December. Medical sources in Gaza and security sources in Egypt have spoken of families waiting to bury their dead in their hometown of Gaza, but forced to resort to the Egyptian border town of al-Arish after being turned back at the crossing. Read more about Rafah crossing closure takes tragic toll 

In an apparent effort to forestall gains by Hamas in Palestinian elections, the Israeli army has arrested a large number of potential candidates in the southern part of the West Bank. The arrests began shortly after midnight on Saturday in the town of Dura, nearly 50km south of Jerusalem, where the Israeli occupation army arrested an undisclosed number of Islamist leaders. Local sources in the Hebron area said the detainees included Shaikh Nayif Rajub, imam of the town’s Grand Mosque, and Shaikh Fathi Amr, a high-ranking official in Hebron’s Islamic endowments department. Rajub’s twin brother, Yasir, was also arrested. Read more about Israel arrests Palestinian candidates 

The independent Palestinian  presidential contestant, Mustafa al-Barghuthi, has said he can beat the front-runner, official Fatah candidate Mahmud Abbas, in the 9 January election. Speaking during an election rally in the town of Dura, 45km southwest of Jerusalem, on Friday, Al-Barghuthi said Palestinians shouldn’t trust “biased and tendentious polls”, an allusion to recent opinion surveys which gave Abbas a substantial lead over al-Barghuthi and other candidates. “The results of the municipal elections prove that all the opinion polls we had seen were false. So don’t trust these polls,” he said. “Instead I urge you to work with me to create a new leadership that will feel and identify with the pain of our people, not the pain of others.” Read more about Abbas' rival strikes confident note 

Like most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Muhammad Qaisiya, a 45-year-old taxi driver, is quite satisfied that a municipal election will finally take place in his small town of Dahiriya, some 17km south west of Hebron, on Thursday. The last local election in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories took place in 1976. Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) supporters won the mayoral election, prompting the Israeli occupation government to freeze the democratic process indefinitely and adopt a policy based on appointment rather than election. Read more about Palestinians prepare for local elections 

Palestinian Liberation Organisation chairman Mahmud Abbas has appealed to the UN to help facilitate the Palestinian presidential election, during talks in Jordan with the UN Middle East envoy. Abbas and interim prime minister, Ahmad Quraya, asked Terje Roed-Larsen to support the Palestinian elections. They also asked that he pressure Israel to ensure voters can cast their ballots freely, Palestinian representative in Amman, Ata Allah Khairy, said. The Palestinian Authority had already notified the quartet of the arrest of several nominees in Dahiriya, as well as the harassment and brief detention of two presidential candidates. Khalid Amayreh reports. Read more about UN help sought for Palestinian presidential elections 

A group of Israeli soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip have reportedly admitted killing a 15-year-old Palestinian in Khan Yunus for sport. According to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth, the incident took place in March when a group of newly graduated soldiers were on a hike near the town of Khan Yunus. According to the report, an undisclosed number of Givati brigade soldiers shot and killed Khalid Sulaiman Mahdi while he was working with his father on their farm. The boy’s father, Sulaiman Mahdi, told the paper the killing was “just for the sake of it”. Read more about Israeli soldiers 'shoot boy for fun'