The return of the generals
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Uri Avnery - (Opinion) August 23, 2011 - 12:00am

Since the beginning of the conflict, the extremists of both sides have always played into each other's hands. The cooperation between them was always much more effective than the ties between the corresponding peace activists. This was proved again this week. At the beginning of the week, Binyamin Netanyahu was desperately looking for a way out of an escalating internal crisis. The social protest movement was gathering momentum and posing a growing danger to his government. The whole content of the public discourse had changed beyond recognition.

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Gaza factions agree ceasefire as overnight calm holds
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 22, 2011 - 12:00am

Reports of a Sunday evening ceasefire deal reached between factions in Gaza and Israel appeared to hold overnight Sunday, as residents paused for breath after four days of Israeli airstrikes. Israeli media and army reported that 12 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel overnight, with no injuries. But the cessation deal, described by a Hamas official as "informal", seemed to take Gaza residents safely through the night. No faction claimed rockets attacks after the deal was in place, around 9 p.m. Israel time, 8 p.m. in winter-saving time.

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Egypt and Israel Move to Halt Growth of Crisis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Stephen Farrell - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

The Egyptian and Israeli governments moved Sunday to ease tensions over fatal cross-border attacks, apparently seeking to stop the crisis from flaring up into a full-scale diplomatic rift. An Israeli official confirmed that an Israeli military delegation arrived in Egypt on Sunday, quietly and unannounced, for behind-the-scenes talks with Egyptian officials, and a second Israeli official issued a public statement of regret for the deaths of Egyptian soldiers.

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Israel apologizes for Egyptian soldiers' deaths
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Jeffrey Fleishman, Edmund Sanders - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Eager to head off a diplomatic crisis with its most important peace partner, Israel apologized to Egypt on Saturday over the deaths of three Egyptian soldiers who were accidentally killed last week during an Israeli military incursion into the Sinai peninsula.

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Israel-Gaza violence threatens protest movement
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Aron Heller - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Security has traditionally trumped all other concerns in Israel. Now some social activists fear a sudden spike of violence with the Palestinians could overwhelm a spontaneous and surprisingly strong summer-long revolt against the country's high cost of living. A deadly ambush that killed eight Israelis, and subsequent Israeli airstrikes and rocket barrages from Gaza over the weekend, have abruptly shifted the country's attention away from the economic protests that were coalescing into a serious threat to the government. Now the security situation is the center of attention again.

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Egypt sets new battle front in a war with its own Islamic hardliners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Alastair Beach - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Perched high on a sandbank overlooking the slums of Gaza, a man who calls himself Abu Nafaq points to a block of canary-yellow flats just beyond the Egyptian border fence. "That is where the Israelis bombed a few days ago," he says, referring to the Israeli bombing raid in response to last week's ambush by terrorists in southern Israel. According to the Israelis, the gunmen who murdered eight people near the Red Sea resort town of Eilat came from Gaza – possibly sneaking out through the warren of smugglers' tunnels leading into the nearby Egyptian shantytown of Rafah.

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Palestinians only lose with violence
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
(Editorial) August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

Thursday’s raid on Israel, by a Palestinian splinter group taking advantage of Egypt’s current inability to police the Sinai Peninsula, was a setback for the cause of Palestinian statehood. The attackers moved south from Gaza to the region of Eilat on the Red Sea by way of Sinai, which has seen increased violence from militant groups since the collapse of the old regime in Egypt. In the Israeli pursuit of the gunmen, five Egyptian border guards were killed. Eight Israelis died in the raids, and seven attackers. Egypt, in protest, planned to recall its ambassador to Israel.

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Israel strikes central Gaza refugee camp
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
August 19, 2011 - 12:00am

Israeli warplanes struck An-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Friday morning in an ongoing assault which has killed at least seven Palestinians in the coastal enclave since Thursday. One Palestinian was lightly injured as Israeli fighter jets bombed a generator near the camp, causing a power outage across the area, said Gaza medical official Adham Abu Salmiya. Missiles also hit a training camp of the armed wing of Hamas, the Al-Qassam Brigades, witnesses said.

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Who is the Palestinian group blamed for the attacks?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
August 19, 2011 - 12:00am

Israel has blamed a Palestinian faction, the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), of launching attacks along its border with Egypt that killed seven Israelis on Thursday. Within hours of the assault, the IAF struck back at the PRC, which is based in Gaza, killing five of its members, including the leader and his lieutenant. Following are some details on the organization, which denied involvement in the attack in southern Israel:

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US urges Egypt to control Sinai
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Masry Al-Youm
August 19, 2011 - 12:00am

The United States pressed Egypt Thursday to follow through on promises to ensure security in the Sinai following a string of attacks in southern Israel said to have been staged from the desert region. The White House denounced the attacks, which left seven Israelis dead and thirty injured, and expressed hope those responsible "will be brought to justice swiftly." "We condemn the brutal terrorist attacks in southern Israel today in the strongest terms," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.

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