Category Archives: News

U.S. rejects Israel’s request to lift flights ban

The Washington Post reports: The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday afternoon ordered U.S. carriers to stop flying to or from Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, prohibiting them from traveling through Israel’s largest airport after a rocket landed nearby.

Airlines were banned from flying to Tel Aviv for a 24-hour period beginning on Tuesday at 12:15 p.m. The FAA said it will issue additional guidance by the end of that period.

This prohibition came after a rocket landed about a mile away from the airport, the FAA said.

“The FAA immediately notified U.S. carriers when the agency learned of the rocket strike and informed them that the agency was finalizing [the notice],” the agency said in a statement. “The FAA will continue to monitor and evaluate the situation.” [Continue reading…]

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U.S. airlines determine it’s not safe to operate flights to Israel

Adam Chandler: The Associated Press is reporting that Delta has decided to indefinitely suspend all of its flights to Israel amid rocket fire from Gaza upon the nearby Tel Aviv area and, most recently, the area surrounding Israel’s lone international airport.

Delta Air Lines is canceling all flights to Israel until further notice, citing reports that a rocket landed near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.


The precedent set by Delta’s decision could potentially cripple Israel’s economy.


Throughout decades of peace negotiations, the greatest fear about an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank was that it would place its only international airport in the crosshairs of rocket fire. But in the past two weeks, Hamas has unveiled rockets capable of firing greater distances, allowing it to target cities once unfathomable to Israeli security forces, including its largest city, Tel Aviv. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS thwarts Syrian government forces on two fronts

McClatchy reports: Syrian government troops failed on two fronts Monday to reverse gains by fighters loyal to the Islamic State, a sign that the insurgents who’ve captured half of Iraq are capable of battling Syria’s government as well.

Anti-government activists said 14 government troops were killed in battles for two villages outside the east Syrian city of Deir el Zour. The Syrian army fared no better in an attempt to recapture the Shaer gas field near in the ancient city of Palmyra, losing six soldiers and failing to dislodge the Islamic State fighters.

The clash in Deir el Zour was the latest sign that the Islamic State, which had frontally attacked the regime only once before _ in the desert near Homs _ is prepared to fight it as the opportunity arises. A member of the Islamist movement told McClatchy that it intends to remove the regime of President Bashar Assad from Deir el Zour province altogether.

The latest confrontation began Friday when the Islamic State, which now controls more than 35 percent of Syria, ordered the last remnant of U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army troops in the province to leave the towns of Ayyash and Ien Al Bujuma’a. This created a temporary power vacuum that government forces attempted to fill by setting up checkpoints around the towns.

The Islamic State launched an attack Saturday that ended with it seizing the two towns and killing 14 government soldiers and three officers.

Activists said regime troops apparently were trying to advance toward Ayyash in a bid to protect military depots in a neighboring area of Badyat Ayyash, said to contain the third biggest depots for weapons and ammunition in Syria. [Continue reading…]

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Iraq’s waterless Christians: The campaign to expel a religion

Bloomberg reports: Qaraqosh is one of the last refuges in northern Iraq for Christians fleeing persecution by the militants of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, who swept into the region in June. A historic Christian city of 50,000 about 19 miles southeast of Mosul, Qaraqosh is under the formidable protection of the well-armed Peshmerga—the Kurdish fighters whose autonomous region disputes the area with both ISIL and the Iraqi central government based in Baghdad. Now, in a further effort to oust Christians from land they have inhabited for two millennia, the Islamic militants have begun turning off a precious utility: water.

Since taking Mosul on June 10, ISIL militants have squeezed Qaraqosh and nearby Christian villages by blocking the pipes that connect the communities with the Tigris river. Without a sufficient number of deep wells to fill the gap, the city must have water trucked in, at huge cost, from Kurdish-controlled areas just 15 miles away. Since ISIL took over key refineries in northern Iraq, the price of fuel has spiked across the region. The parched residents of Qaraqosh must pay about $10 every other day to fill up emergency water tanks, no small sum in this economically depressed part of Iraq. [Continue reading…]

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Second-class citizens: Israel’s Bedouin aren’t entitled to bomb shelters

Al Jazeera reports: Israel’s high court ruled Sunday that the state is not obligated to provide bomb shelters to its Bedouin citizens. The decision came after a Bedouin man was killed and his family injured when a rocket hit his encampment in southern Israel on Saturday.

The ruling was in response to a petition filed by local Bedouin and human rights organisations that asked the state to provide mobile bomb shelters to residents in the Negev Desert. About 200,000 Bedouin call Israel home, and half live in villages across the Negev Desert. [Continue reading…]

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Jewish businesses in Paris are being looted and destroyed by protesters over Israel Gaza offensive

AFP reports: France’s interior minister Monday slammed “intolerable” acts of anti-Semitism after a rally against Israel’s Gaza offensive descended into violence pitting an angry pro-Palestinian crowd against local Jewish businesses.

Sunday’s demonstration in the north Paris suburb of Sarcelles was the third to deteriorate in a week, as shops were looted and riot police lobbed tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd.

The rally had been banned amid concern the Jewish community would be targeted after protesters last weekend tried to storm two synagogues in Paris.

“When you head for the synagogue, when you burn a corner shop because it is Jewish-owned, you are committing an anti-Semitic act,” Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters outside the Sarcelles synagogue.

In the Paris suburb sometimes nicknamed “little Jerusalem” for its large community of Sephardic Jews, the rally descended into chaos when dozens of youth — some masked — set fire to bins and lit firecrackers and smoke bombs.

Eighteen people were arrested after looters wrecked shops, including a kosher foodstore and a funeral home as protesters shouted: “Fuck Israel!”. [Continue reading…]

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Israel’s war against children

The New York Times reports: As the Israeli offensive spread through Gaza, generating gruesome photos of dead and fleeing Palestinians, even Secretary of State John F. Kerry appeared to express frustration.

Although Mr. Kerry, on several Sunday talk shows, vociferously defended Israel’s right to take action, he also made critical comments privately that were captured by Fox News on a live microphone. Chris Wallace, the Fox interviewer, confronted Mr. Kerry with a tape of those remarks during his appearance on that channel. In it, Mr. Kerry is heard to say: “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation,” adding, “We got to get over there.”

The comments were without context, but Mr. Wallace’s questioning and Mr. Kerry’s reply seemed to make clear that the secretary had been speaking ironically to express frustration at the deaths of Palestinian civilians, including many children, in an operation aimed at militants.

Asked if he was “upset that the Israelis are going too far,” Mr. Kerry replied: “It’s very difficult in these situations. I reacted, obviously, in a way that anybody does in respect to young children and civilians.”

The Associated Press reports: Sobbing and shaking, Ismail Abu Musallam leaned against the wall of a hospital Friday, waiting for three of his children to be prepared for burial. They were killed as they slept when an Israeli tank shell hit their home, burying 11-year-old Ahmed, 14-year-old Walaa and 16-year-old Mohammed under debris in their beds.

His personal tragedy is not unique: the U.N. says minors make up one-fifth of the 299 Palestinians killed in 11 days of intense Israeli bombardment of the densely populated Gaza Strip, where half the 1.7 million people are under age 18.

The Israeli military says it’s doing its utmost to spare civilians by urging residents to leave areas that are about to be shelled or bombed as Hamas targets. It accuses the Islamic militants of using civilians as human shields by firing rockets from civilian areas.

But even if urged to evacuate, most Gazans have no safe place to go, rights activists say.

Harrowing images of Gaza neighborhood hit hardest by Israel — Washington Post

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Egyptian media applauds Israel’s Gaza offensive

AFP reports: Israel’s escalating attack on the Gaza Strip has triggered worldwide debate. Egypt is no exception.

But there is little of the traditional Arab solidarity towards Palestinians to be found in the Egyptian media.

Adel Nehaman, a columnist for the Egyptian daily El-Watan, said bluntly: “Sorry Gazans, I cannot support you until you rid yourselves of Hamas.”

Azza Sami, a writer for government daily Al-Ahram, went so far as to congratulate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Twitter: “Thank you Netanyahu, and God give us more men like you to destroy Hamas!”

Star presenter of the Al-Faraeen TV channel, Tawfik Okasha, an ardent supporter of Egypt’s military regime and known for his firm stance against the ousted Muslim Brotherhood, attacked the entire Palestinian population live on air.

“Gazans are not men,” he declared. “If they were men they would revolt against Hamas.”

His broadcast was even picked up by Israeli TV to demonstrate Egyptian support for Israel. [Continue reading…]

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Gaza ceasefire hopes switch to Qatar as Arabs divided over Israeli offensive

The Guardian reports: International efforts to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip are focusing on the Gulf state of Qatar, whose close links to Hamas make it uniquely placed to try to mediate in a conflict that has highlighted Arab divisions in the face of Israeli attacks.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, was flying to Doha at the start of a round of emergency talks to try to halt the escalating carnage. Ban was due to meet the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and head of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. It was unclear whether Ban would also see the Hamas leader, Khaled Mishal, who lives in Doha.

Mishal and Abbas were due to meet separately.

Ban is also due in Cairo on Monday to see President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, author of a rival ceasefire plan that has already been rejected by Hamas. Hamas said Mishal had also been invited to the Egyptian capital.

Khaled al-Attiyeh, Qatar’s foreign minister, has emerged as a key figure in the ceasefire effort, not least because he is close to John Kerry, the US secretary of state. The Qataris say they are simply providing a “channel of communication” to discuss an agreement that contains the key Hamas demands: an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, an opening of the border with Egypt and a release of scores of recently re-arrested prisoners by Israel.

Qatar’s role as mediator is being enhanced because of the deep hostility of the Egyptian government to Hamas, which has close links to the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, a key element of the Egyptian initiative – rejected by Hamas – is the return of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority to Gaza, for the first time since the 2007 takeover of the territory by the Palestinian Islamist movement. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS coordinating operations with Assad regime in Syria

McClatchy reports: Extremist fighters of the Islamic State, already in control of a third of Iraqi territory, are on the attack in Syria, where they’ve seized more oil fields, facilitated the Assad regime’s advance in Aleppo and started a new offensive against Kurds, Syrian opposition figures say.

The Islamic State now controls more than 35 percent of Syrian territory, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based pro-rebel group, reported Friday. Its holdings include nearly all of Syria’s oil and gas fields.

The latest gain of the self-proclaimed “caliphate” was the seizure Thursday of the oil field in the desert at Palmyra, after the takeover of the country’s biggest oil fields, in Deir el Zour in eastern Syria, earlier in the week.

The Assad regime still controls the military airport and parts of Deir el Zour, but there are no signs that it’s challenging the Islamic State or vice versa, a kind of coexistence seen in many parts of northern and eastern Syria.

It’s in Aleppo that the regime owes a major debt to the Islamic State, according to senior aides in the U.S.-backed Syrian opposition. President Bashar Assad’s forces captured the industrial zone in the northeast of the city earlier this month by “carpet bombing” with air-to-ground missiles, bombs and artillery, according to Monzer Akbik, the senior aide to Ahmad Jarba, the outgoing president of the anti-government coalition.

The advance was facilitated by Islamic State forces, which allowed it to proceed unopposed. “No one fired a bullet at the advancing forces as they moved through villages” held by the group, said Hussam al Marie, a spokesman for Free Syrian Army rebel troops in northern Syria. “And the regime did not fire a bullet at IS.” [Continue reading…]

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ISIS overwhelms Iraqi forces at Tikrit in major defeat

McClatchy reports: Islamic State gunmen overran a former U.S. military base early Friday and killed or captured hundreds of Iraqi government troops who’d been trying to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, the worst military reversal Iraqi troops have suffered since the Islamist forces captured nearly half the country last month.

The defeat brought to an end a three-week campaign by the government in Baghdad to recapture Tikrit, which fell to the Islamic State on June 11. Military spokesmen earlier this week had confidently announced a final push to recapture the city.

Instead, Islamic State forces turned back the army’s thrust up the main highway Wednesday. Beginning late Thursday, the Islamist forces stormed Camp Speicher, a former U.S. military base named for a pilot who disappeared during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and overwhelmed the troops there.

Witnesses reached by phone, who asked not be identified for security reasons, said that by Friday morning the final pocket of government troops had collapsed, an ignominious end for a counteroffensive that had begun with a helicopter assault into Tikrit University but ended with troops trapped at Camp Speicher. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS burns 1,800-year-old church in Mosul

Al Arabiya reports: Militants from the radical jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria have set fire to a 1,800-year-old church in Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul, a photo released Saturday shows.

The burning of the church is the latest in a series of destruction of Christian property in Mosul, which was taken by the Islamist rebels last month, along with other swathes of Iraqi territory.

A video posted on YouTube July 9 shows a tomb being destroyed with a sledgehammer which government officials said was “almost certainly” the tomb of Biblical prophet Jonah.

Earlier, Mosul’s Christians fled the city en masse before a Saturday deadline issued by the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) for them to either convert to Islam, pay tax, leave or be killed. [Continue reading…]

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Death comes often in Gaza these days, and it comes early

The New York Times reports: They fled by night, using their cellphones as flashlights on pitch-black roads as Israeli shells whistled around them. They carried a white flag and dragged crying children at a trot, a family of 25 headed for a relative’s house farther into the Gaza Strip.

When dawn broke, they split the family among several more relatives. The grandmother, Naama Abu Hamad, 62, insisted on this. That way, she said, they could not all be killed by a single strike, and lose “an entire generation.”

As the Israeli military pressed into the Gaza Strip, taking over areas near the boundary with Israel, the hardships facing civilians deepened. Israel cut off the electricity it supplies to the strip, which is almost all the electricity that comes to Gaza, local and international officials said. For days a blasted sewage pipe has leaked into drinking water, but workers have been unable to fix it because of the danger from airstrikes.

The number of Gazans displaced by the war to official shelters more than doubled in 24 hours, to 47,000 from 22,000, according to the United Nations, but the true figure is probably much higher, since most people, like Ms. Abu Hamad, take refuge with friends and family. [Continue reading…]

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London: Massive protest against Israel’s assault on Gaza; protesters in Paris defy ban

Reuters reports: Pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with police in Paris on Saturday as they defied a ban on a planned rally against violence in the Gaza strip.

A Reuters photographer said demonstrators in northern Paris launched projectiles at riot police, who responded by firing teargas canisters and stun grenades. Demonstrators also climbed on top of a building and burned an Israeli flag.

President Francois Hollande earlier said he had asked his interior minister to ban protests that could turn violent after demonstrators marched on two synagogues in Paris last weekend and clashed with riot police.

“That’s why I asked the interior minister, after an investigation, to ensure that such protests would not take place,” he told journalists during a visit to Chad.

In defiance of the ban, large crowds gathered in northern Paris chanting “Israel, assassin” until they were dispersed by tear gas.

Peaceful rallies were also held in more than a dozen other cities, from Lille in the north to Marseille in the South.

“This ban on demonstrations, which was decided at the last minute, actually increases the risk of public disorder,” the Greens Party said in a statement. “It’s a first in Europe.” [Continue reading…]

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Ukraine video claims proof of Russia-supplied anti-aircraft system

McClatchy reports: The Ukrainian security ministry on Friday released a video in which officials claimed they have evidence proving pro-Russian separatists had the capability to shoot down the Malaysian Airlines jet that killed 298, including one American.

The video claims that earlier Thursday, on the day of the attack, Ukrainian counterintelligence received what it had considered reliable information that separatists had received both the BUK anti-aircraft system thought to have brought down Flight 17, and the Russian military staff that would know how to operate it.

The video begins by showing scenes of the wreckage and noting, “The Security Service of Ukraine has established certain circumstances of the terrorist act committed on July 17.” It goes on to note that “the available information allows to assert that the Boeing 777 was shot down by terrorists of the Donetsk People’s Republic with the use of BUK anti-aircraft missile system capable of hitting aircraft at high altitudes.” [Continue reading…]

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