Hezbollah…. Is this your Vision for Gaza?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Tariq Alhomayed - (Opinion) January 5, 2009 - 1:00am

One can only feel sadness with regards to what is happening in the Gaza Strip, which can only be described as a brutal and ruthless Israeli attack in the face of clear international inability to call a halt to this continued aggression on almost 1.5 million Gazans.

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Gaza City residents hunker down
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Rushdi Abu Alouf, Richard Boudreaux - January 5, 2009 - 1:00am

Reporting from Gaza City and Jerusalem -- As Israeli forces closed in on Gaza City, Mohammed Barbari joined the scramble by its most intrepid residents Sunday for dwindling supplies of food they would need while hunkering down at home. The first explosion tore through the central Firas Market at 11:30 a.m. as he approached from adjacent Palestine Square. Unable to turn his yellow Volkswagen Golf around in traffic, he kept driving toward the hail of shrapnel and the screams of scattering shoppers.

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Two Years Later: Two Wars and One Ideology
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Dar Al-Hayat
by Elias Harfoush - (Opinion) January 5, 2009 - 1:00am

The confrontation between the Israeli army and the Hamas movement following the ground invasion of Gaza is similar in many aspects to the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah in summer 2006.

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Wounded Gaza family lay bleeding for 20 hours
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amira Hass - January 5, 2009 - 1:00am

Three hours after the Israel Defense Forces began their ground operation in the Gaza Strip, at about 10:30 P.M. Saturday night, a shell or missile hit the house owned by Hussein al A'aiedy and his brothers. Twenty-one people live in the isolated house, located in an agricultural area east of Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood. Five of them were wounded in the strike: Two women in their eighties (his mother and aunt), his 14-year-old son, his 13-year-old niece and his 10-year-old nephew.

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Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Heather Sharp - January 5, 2009 - 1:00am

The bloodied children are clearly civilians; men killed as they launch rockets are undisputedly not. But what about the 40 or so young Hamas police recruits on parade who died in the first wave of Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza? And weapons caches are clearly military sites – but what about the interior ministry, hit in a strike that killed two medical workers; or the money changer's office, destroyed last week injuring a boy living on the floor above?

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How much time is left for the IDF to operate in Gaza?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff - January 5, 2009 - 1:00am

The eastern outskirts of Gaza City was where the Israel Defense Forces encountered the most serious resistance yet since the Gaza ground incursion began Saturday. Troops who raided the home of a Hamas man in the area Sunday discovered that the house served as cover for the entrance of no fewer than three underground tunnels, from which Hamas gunmen fled to nearby houses and fired.

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In the US, Gaza is a different war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Jazeera English
by Habib Battah - January 5, 2009 - 1:00am

The images of two women on the front page of an edition of The Washington Post last week illustrates how mainstream US media has been reporting Israel's war on Gaza. On the left was a Palestinian mother who had lost five children. On the right was a nearly equally sized picture of an Israeli woman who was distressed by the fighting, according to the caption. As the Palestinian woman cradled the dead body of one child, another infant son, his face blackened and disfigured with bruises, cried beside her. The Israeli woman did not appear to be wounded in any way but also wept.

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Solution to Gaza crisis requires pan-Arab effort
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Zvi Barel - January 4, 2009 - 1:00am

The intensification of the military operation in Gaza has not yet led to a similar increase in the Arab states' diplomatic efforts. A lasting diplomatic solution to the Gaza situation demands more than an agreement between Hamas and Israel - it demands pan-Arab reconciliation. Turkish Prime Recep Tayyip Erdogan's shuttle diplomacy took him to Saudi Arabia on Sunday, and it seems he is now coming to understand the tremendous weight of the mission he has taken upon himself.

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Hamas has failed – it is time they stepped down
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Sultan Al Qasemi - January 4, 2009 - 1:00am

Regardless of the outcome of the barbaric Israeli Operation Cast Lead, one thing is certain; it is high time for Hamas to step down as the keeper of Gaza. This is where people will object and remind us that they were democratically elected. My answer to that is: Yes, but they are incompetent.

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Israeli Troops Advance, Bisecting Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Taghreed El-Khodary, Isabel Kershner - January 4, 2009 - 1:00am

GAZA — Israeli troops advanced into Gaza on Sunday under cover of heavy air, tank and artillery fire after opening a ground war against the militant group Hamas on Saturday night. Witnesses said the Israeli forces had punched across Gaza, bisecting its northern and southern parts, and had taken over certain strategic areas, including what the military has described as rocket launching sites.

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