Ramallah  - The popularity of the Islamic Hamas movement continues to decline among Palestinians, while that of its rival - the secular Fatah movement - remains unchanged, a new public opinion poll published Monday showed.

The poll said if parliamentary elections were held today, Fatah would receive 43 per cent of the vote, compared to 29 per cent for Hamas, and the movement's leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, would receive the support of 53 per cent of the voters, compared to 39 per cent for Hamas leader Ismail Haniya.

Ramallah  - Some 2.35 million Palestinians currently live in the West Bank, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said Monday, basing the number on a census conducted in 2007.

This represents an increase from 1.87 million ten years ago when the first census was conducted, PCBS director Loai Shabaneh said in a statement

He said annual growth rate between the two census periods was 2.6 per cent, which means the Palestinian population in the West Bank will double after 27 years and not after 23 years, as was previously predicted. This is a direct result of a decline in fertility rate and of emigration, he added.

Ramallah - The Islamic Hamas movement on Saturday said the Palestinian Authority (PA) was maintaining a campaign to shut down charities and local aid organizations in West Bank.

The PA's "frantic campaign has targeted many charities and service organizations by storming, closing and confiscating the belongings of these organizations," Hamas said in a statement.

Ramallah - Thousands of Palestinians were expected to gather in Ramallah Wednesday to bid farewell to their most famous poet and the author of their declaration of independence.

Mahmoud Darwish died at a United States hospital on Friday following open heart surgery. He was 67.

Darwish's coffin was due to arrive at noon at the headquarters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a Jordanian army helicopter coming from Amman.

Tel Aviv, Ramallah - Israel Monday rejected a warning by the Palestinian top negotiator that the Palestinians could abandon efforts to reach a two-state solution to their decades-old conflict, if Israel continued "sabotaging" progress toward a peace deal.

Ahmed Qureia, who heads the Palestinian negotiating team with Israel, said Sunday night the Palestinians might push for a "bi-national," joint Israeli-Palestinian state instead.

Ramallah - Mahmoud Darwish, who advocated for Palestinian statehood in his poems known throughout the Middle East, died Saturday after undergoing a heart operation in the United States, Palestinian television reported.

The 67-year-old had undergone an operation in Houston on Wednesday and his condition had worsened. He had had two previous such operations.

Darwish was known as one of the most outstanding poets in the Arab world and as the poetic voice of the Palestinians. His 30 volumes of poetry have been translated into 
30 languages.