Rise in terror activities by Jewish extremists worries Israel's Shin Bet
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Vita Bekker - September 14, 2011 - 12:00am

Israel is growing concerned about a rise in terror activities by Jewish extremists against Palestinians and Israeli left-wing activists as it anticipates violence ahead of a possible United Nations recognition of Palestinian statehood.

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Settlers target W. Bank mosque - officials
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alertnet
by Reuters - (Analysis) September 8, 2011 - 12:00am

YATMA, West Bank, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Israeli settlers sprayed graffiti on a mosque and torched Palestinian cars in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, angered by Israel's demolition of structures at an unauthorised outpost, Palestinian officials said. "We condemn these attacks and also the Israeli government for allowing this to happen," Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib said, urging the international community "to provide our people with protection".

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Barak: Gaza groups planning new major terror attack on Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Anshel Pfeffer - (Analysis) August 29, 2011 - 12:00am

Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Monday that Palestinian organizations in Gaza are preparing to carry out an attack similar to the one in southern Israel on August 18, in which eight civilians were killed. Barak, who visited the plant of Israel Aerospace Industries subsidiary Elta in Ashdod on Monday morning, said that “even this morning we are on high alert in the south in the face of the possible attack, which is similar in set-up to the one that happened ten days ago.”

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Israel bolsters Egypt border defenses over new terror warnings
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff, Anshel Pfeffer - August 24, 2011 - 12:00am

Chief of Staff Benny Gantz ordered on Wednesday that the Israel Defense Forces increase defensive measures along Israel's border with Egypt due to intelligence that terrorist groups are planning attacks similar to the ones last Thursday in which eight Israelis were killed. The new measures include putting in place additional means of electronic and visual intelligence gathering as well bolstering the Navy Command Center in the southern city of Eilat.

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IDF investigation: Egyptians took part in attack near Eilat
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ron Ben-Yishai - August 24, 2011 - 12:00am

The IDF did everything in its power to prevent Egyptian troops from getting hurt in last Thursday's multiple terror attacks near Eilat, inquiries conducted by both the IDF and the Egyptian army showed. The IDF also found that at least three of the terrorists were Egyptian citizens. Head of the General Staff's Planning Branch Amir Eshel, who traveled to Cairo early this week to present to Egyptian officials the findings of the IDF's initial investigation, even brought photographic evidence to the fact.

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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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Al Qaeda linked to Israeli bus ambush
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Times
by Eli Lake - August 22, 2011 - 12:00am

U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating reports that al Qaeda-aligned groups played a key role in the deadly commando-style attack near the Israeli resort town of Eilat last week. A U.S. government assessment of the incident Thursday concludes that either the Palestinian group Popular Resistance Committees or the Gaza-based Army of Islam (or Jaish al Islam), a Palestinian group sympathetic to al Qaeda, carried out the commando assault and bombing raid that emanated from the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.

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Bedouin May Have Joined Attack on Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Joseph Mayton, Arieh O'Sullivan - August 21, 2011 - 12:00am

As the Egyptian military began to flex its muscle in the northern Sinai on Sunday, Bedouin trial leaders said the cross-border attack on Israel that killed eight people had included Bedouins as well as Palestinians.

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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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