As Israel takes to the Internet in search of innovative ways to make its case about Gaza to the world, Jews around the globe also are utilizing innovative methods — and particularly new technological tools — to explain what the Jewish state is facing as it acts to protect its southern flank from rocket fire.
StandWithUs, a Los Angeles-based pro-Israel group, has established a round-the-clock Internet task force — in cooperation with the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel — to monitor Web sites and provide instant responses to attacks on the …

Israeli military officials said their 19-day offensive in the Gaza Strip had weakened Hamas but that a knockout blow was unlikely. The conflict showed no signs of ending Wednesday as diplomats reported little progress in negotiating a truce.
In Cairo, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon met Wednesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in a bid to break the diplomatic impasse. Ban said he would keep pushing Israel and Hamas to observe a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire but was not optimistic.

Israeli ground forces fought fierce street battles with Palestinian militants in Gaza City Tuesday, while Israeli warplanes reportedly bombed areas along the Egypt-Gaza border.
Israeli soldiers, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed into Gaza City’s densely-populated Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, but have yet to move on the center of the territory’s largest city.
On the territory’s southern tip, an official with the aid agency CARE International, Jawab Hab, said Israel has launched air strikes on houses in Rafah, 100 meters from the border with Egypt. Israel has said it is targeting tunnels in the …

On the 17th day of the war against Hamas, Israel said it launched around 15 air strikes overnight, fewer than in some recent nights, as Israeli troops pushed into a heavily populated area of Gaza City from the south on Sunday in fierce fighting that reportedly continued on Monday.
Senior Israeli officials said for the first time in the war that they believed that the Hamas military wing was beginning to crack and that Hamas leaders inside Gaza were looking for a cease-fire. News reports said Hamas fired at least one …

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, has said the military has nearly completed the goals set for the war on Gaza, as ground forces continue to advance on the edges of Gaza City.
“Israel is getting close to achieving the goals it set for itself,” he said at an Israeli cabinet meeting on Sunday.
He told ministers that Israel had “dealt Hamas an unprecedented blow … It will never be the same Hamas,” Oved Yehezkel, the Israeli cabinet secretary, said.

COLOMBO (AFP) — Helicopter gunships and war planes attacked suspected Tamil Tiger strong points in northern Sri Lanka on Monday while at least 19 rebels were killed in ground battles, the defence ministry said.
Aircraft hit two positions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at Iranamadu, just south of their political capital of Kilinochchi which fell to government forces earlier this month, the ministry said.

Pakistani forces attacked militants in mountains near the Afghan border on Monday as fresh troops arrived after heavy fighting with Taliban insurgents, government officials said.
More than 600 al Qaeda-linked militants attacked a paramilitary force camp and two checkposts in the Mohmand region, to the north of the city of Peshawar, Saturday night killing six soldiers and wounding seven, the force said.
Security forces pushed back the militants, who had attacked from the direction of the Afghan border, killing 40 of them in hours of fighting, the paramilitary force said. There was …

Doctors in Gaza City have told Al Jazeera that people have been admitted suffering burns consistent with the use of the controversial chemical white phosphorus.
Human rights campaigners say that Israeli forces have used the munition, which can burn away human flesh to the bone, over Gaza City and Jabaliya in recent days.
Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said: “Doctors here say they are seeing unprecedented levels of deep burns.
“They cannot categorically say that white phosphorus is being used, they are saying that the munitions …

Sri Lankan troops fought toward the shrinking strongholds of the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels on Sunday, the military said, seeking a crushing battlefield victory to end one of Asia’s longest insurgent ground wars.
The military said it had killed at least 24 rebels after a series of confrontations on Saturday in the small northeastern wedge of jungle which is all that is left of the Tigers’ self-proclaimed state.
In the course of fighting, troops captured two rebel camps and a 2.5 km (1 mile) long airstrip with two hangars the military said …

Police in Athens have clashed with protesters in a resumption of the violence that flared after last month’s killing of a teenager by police.
Hooded youths broke away from a student march against education reforms and threw stones and flares at riot police, who fired tear gas and flash grenades.