“Filippo Grandi, Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), has named 23-year-old Mohammad Assaf as the first UNRWA Regional Youth Ambassador for Palestine Refugees. This follows Mohammad winning the Arab Idol crown and reflects his personal commitment to Palestinian refugees and to UNRWA,” the UN agency said in a statement.

A diplomatic source in Beirut, where MBC’s Arab Idol is filmed, told Maan news agency the agreement was signed days ago to make Assaf the first-ever Palestinian refugee to become a UN ambassador.

The performer from the Gaza Strip which has become an audience favorite for singing about the troubles of Palestinians under Israeli occupation Accepting his appointment as Youth Ambassador, said: “I’m truly honoured to become an Ambassador for Palestine refugees. All my good memories of the UNRWA school in Khan Younis in Gaza, where I had the opportunity to study and grow, are still very fresh. Being a young refugee myself, I can understand better than anybody else the challenges and the opportunities before us. I’m committed to doing my very best to help UNRWA succeed in giving other young people like me the same chance.”

Thousands of Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza celebrated in the streets late Saturday.

The first Palestinian to win Arab Idol, Assaf was born to Palestine refugee parents in Libya. He returned to the Gaza Strip with his family at age 4 and was raised largely in the refugee camp in Khan Younis. He has described himself as a “son of Palestine” and a “son of UNRWA”: his mother is an UNRWA teacher, and he himself was educated in UNRWA schools.

‘‘Why are you staying divided?” Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani said during a speech at Gaza’s Islamic University, where he and his wife Sheikha Mozah were presented with honorary doctorates, according to AP.

“There are no peace negotiations, and there is no clear strategy of resistance and liberation. Why shouldn’t brothers sit together and reconcile, ” he added.

The emir, the first Arab ruler to visit the Gaza Strip since since Israel imposed a siege on Gaza in 2007. met senior Israeli officials, denounced Israel’s policies and praised people in Gaza for standing up to it with “bare chests.”

But he said internal strife had undermined the Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation, adding that reconciliation was most urgent.

Sheikh Hamad has previously sought to mediate between Hamas and Fatah and urged an end to the division based on the Doha and Cairo agreements, and the efforts of Fatah leader President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal.

Thousands lined the streets in Gaza to welcome the Qatari emir Haniyeh declared as a “victory” over the blockade through this historic visit.

Qatar has called the visit a humanitarian gesture, to inaugurate reconstruction projects financed by the emirate. After initially earmarking $250 million for the schemes, Hamas premier Ismail Haniyeh announced the fund now stood at $400 million.

The Qatari investment project aims to rebuild the Gaza Strip, which endured damage during a huge 22-day Israeli military operation in December 2008 and January 2009.

The investment project seeks to build 1,000 homes for poor families in the devastated Khan Younis area in the south of the Strip.

On the other hand, Fatah had urged Palestinians to boycott the emir’s visit, and said it would entrench the division between the West Bank and Gaza, according to Maan news agency.

Fatah’s office in Gaza said it had not been invited to the meet the sheikh by Qatar or Hamas, but Gaza government spokesman Taher al-Nunu said Fatah had rejected an invitation to the welcoming ceremony.

Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, has left Doha with a large delegation including his wife Sheikh Moza, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim and other ministers, according to Qatar News Agency (QNA).

The Emir is set to enter the Gaza Strip by land from Egypt given that Gaza has no airport or seaport, as Israel controls all the other crossing points.

The visit hailed as “very important” comes during a spike in tension between Israel and Hamas, whose armed wing on Monday threatened revenge for Israeli air strikes that killed one of its men and at least one other militant, AFP reported.

The Qatari investment project aims to rebuild the Gaza Strip, which endured damage during a huge 22-day Israeli military operation in December 2008 and January 2009.

The investment project seeks to build 1,000 homes for poor families in the devastated Khan Younis area in the south of the Strip.

“This visit has great political significance,” said Hamas government spokesman Taher al-Nunu, according to Al Jazeera.

“He is the first Arab leader to break the political siege.

Israel commented on the visit also. “We find it weird that the emir doesn’t support all of the Palestinians but sides with Hamas over the Palestinian Authority (in the West Bank) which he has never visited,” foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP on Monday.

“The emir has chosen his camp and it is not good.”

According to Maan news agency, five detainees captured Friday morning by the Egyptian army in northern Sinai have been charged of leading “Jihadist” groups and involved in what the Egyptian authorities described as “terrorist attacks” in the Sinai.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has visited the city of el-Arish in North Sinai for the second time since the Sinai attack on Sunday and has vowed to use “a grip of steel to stop the criminals”.

Egypt also temporarily reopened the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip, which was shut since the Sinai attack.

 Some 1,500 Palestinians returned to the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to Gaza’s interior ministry.

Maher Abu Sbeiha, director of crossings in the Hamas-run ministry, said that the Rafah crossing would open again Saturday for people traveling into Gaza, but would remain closed to those trying to leave the enclave, Maan new agency reported.

Ismail Haniyeh pledged his support for Egypt’s investigations of the attack, which has led to the biggest Egyptian military assault in the Sinai Peninsula since the October war in 1973.

Hamas has ruled out suggestions that Palestinian gunmen took part in the Sinai killings and has criticized Cairo for imposing “collective punishment” on the impoverished strip by sealing the border.

The Rafah crossing normally sees some 800 people a day leave for Egypt and beyond, according to Reuters. 

Egypt has also moved to seal myriad smuggling tunnels connecting Sinai and the Gaza Strip since Sunday’s attack. the Al-Ahram state-run news website reported on Friday that some 150 tunnels had been destroyed. There are believed to be about 1,000 such tunnels.

The latest strikes targeted two camps of the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in central and northern Gaza; and a former Hamas security post in Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera. 

The attacks wounded 19 people, Hamas medical officials said on Saturday, according to imemc.org.

Earlier on Friday, medics in the Gaza Strip reported that two Palestinians had been killed and four wounded after two Israeli air strikes.

A first Israeli air strike on Friday afternoon targeted the east of Al-Bureij in the central part of the Gaza Strip, killing Basel Ahmad, 29, while two other Palesitnians were wounded in the attack, according to Al Jazeera.

A second Israeli air strike killed another Palestinian in the north of Gaza identified as Hammam Abou Qadous, 20. Two other Palestinians were slightly injured in the same attack, according to PNN.

An Israeli army statement said “a plane of the Israeli Air Force targeted a terrorist group in northern Gaza just after the group launched a rocket that hit the Ashkelon region.”

Hamas militants had conditionally pledged to adhere to a truce brokered by Egypt on Wednesday, if Israel also withheld fire. Israel never commented on the deal but its officials have pledged to respond to any rocket fire from Gaza.

The latest round of Israeli attacks and Palestinian retaliation began with air strikes on Monday morning, just hours after gunmen from Sinai carried out an ambush along Israel’s southern border with Egypt, killing an Israeli civilian which Israel claims that it is ”in no way related” to the border incident, with the military saying the air force was targeting militants about to attack Israel.

Since Monday, more than 130 rockets and mortar rounds have been fired at Israel.

Airstrikes on Friday, which Israel’s army said was in response to rocket fire from militants, brought the Gaza death toll to 10 people since hostilities began.