The Latest from Israel-Gaza-Palestine (27 February): Livni Rejects Netanyahu Coalition

Afternoon Update (11:30 a.m. GMT): Kadima leader Tzipi Livni says she will not join Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu in a governing coalition: Kadima will be a "responsible opposition".

Morning Update (8 a.m. GMT; 10 a.m. Israel/Palestine): The more extravagant headlines on yesterday's Palestinian "reconciliation" talks in Cairo proclaim "Vow to Release prisoners, Unify".

It's not quite that straightforward. Hamas and Fatah did agree to an effective swap of political detainees/prisoners in Gaza and the West Bank and "to stop smear campaigns in the media". The 12 Palestinian groups also agreed to form five committees on prisoners, security, and elections. The committees will begin meetings on 10 March and issue reports by the end of the month.

The question, however, is whether the leaderships of the Palestinian factions will act on those reports. On the surface, this appears to be an immediate victory for Hamas, which did not want any quick pronouncement on the make-up of a Palestinian Government. They now have time to manoeuvre, building on the upswell of support from the Gaza War, while Fatah and the Palestinian Authority scramble to recover their position.

The Latest from Israel-Gaza-Palestine (26 February): The Cairo Talks

Afternoon Update (3:25 p.m. GMT): US envoy George Mitchell has embarked on his second tour of the Middle East, meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in separate meetings. 

Earlier, Mitchell was in Ankara to ensure Turkish leaders, who had criticised Israel over its conduct in the Gaza War, were on board: "Turkey is a crucial ally of the United States and an important force for peace and security in the Middle East."

This is almost a daily ritual. Two rockets fired into Israel; Israel strikes smuggling tunnels around Rafah.

Morning Update (11 a.m. GMT; 1 p.m. Israel/Palestine): The Palestinian "reconciliation" talks, involving a dozen groups but with most attention focused on Hamas and Fatah, have opened in Cairo. Egypt, after the failure of its strategy in the Gaza conflict is hoping to recover a prime position in the region with a successful outcome; its head of intelligence, Omar Suleiman (pictured), told delegates,

Everyone is looking toward you ... and hanging their hopes on you. So do not prolong the disagreement and deepen the division. Unite ranks to fulfill the hopes of all for an independent Palestinian state.

Fatah, with the Palestinian Authority's legal and political mandate in the West Bank in jeopardy, is pressing for a quick agreement on a new Palestinian government; Hamas is signalling that it will seek a longer process.

Meanwhile, in Israel, it appears that any prospect of a coaltion government of Likud, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, and Kadima, led by Tzipi Livni, has been doomed over differences on a two-state Israel-Palestine solution. Livni is insisting on a clear settlement; Netanyahu is holding out against it. Former foreign minister and Likud negotiator Silvan Shalom told Army Radio:

There is across-the-board agreement on Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas but there is a big gap between Kadima and Likud on the two states for two people. It's unsolvable.

Gaza Threat Alert: Rockets with Macaroni Warheads

Really. McClatchy News Service reports:

For more than seven weeks, the international aid group Mercy Corps has been trying to send 90 tons of macaroni to the isolated Gaza Strip as part of a global campaign to help the 1.4 million Palestinians there rebuild their lives after Israel's recent devastating 22-day military operation.

Israel, which controls most of what goes into and out of Gaza, has said no repeatedly.

On Wednesday, days after American lawmakers raised pointed questions about the macaroni ban, Israeli authorities said that they were preparing to give the pasta a green light.

At first, Israeli officials said that they wanted to make sure that the macaroni wasn't destined for a Hamas charity. Then they said macaroni was banned because they didn't consider it an essential food item.

Representative Brian Baird, who just visited Gaza, offered the key military challenge: ""Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?"

Here are other items that pose imminent danger and thus have been blocked by Israel:

Lentils
Paper
Crayons
Tomato Paste

Readers with far more scientific minds than mind can design weapons of mass destribution from this list. However, there might be a more prosaic political explanation Israel's continued economic stranglehold on Gaza:

"We want to make sure that reconstruction for the people of Gaza is not reconstruction for the Hamas regime," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Virtual Gaza: Breaking the Information Blockade

We've just learned about the website Virtual Gaza, which tries to get information about conditions in the area to the world. The testimony, photographs, and videos are set on the platform of a bird's-eye view of the territory: a combination of Google Earth with witness reports and investigative journalism.

The Latest on Israel-Gaza-Palestine (24 February)

Afternoon Update (11:30 a.m. GMT): Both Israel and Hamas have rejected Amnesty International's call for an arms embargo.

Morning Update (8 a.m. GMT; 10 a.m. Israel/Palestine): Hamas and Fatah are manoeuvring for position ahead of Wednesday's "reconcilation" talks in Cairo. On Monday, Hamas criticised Fatah for the continued detention of its members in West Bank jails and released videos which it claims proved that Fatah members spied for Gaza during the recent Gaza War.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has named two senior officials to replace Amos Gilad, the Israeli representative at the Cairo talks on Gaza. Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency, and Shalom Turjeman, a senior Olmert aide, will take over from Gilad, who was fired after he criticised the Olmert Government's "inconsistency" on the talks.