LI-ON, Israel: Many Israelis feel that the walls – and history – are closing in on their 60-year-old state, much as they felt in early June 1967, just before Israel launched the Six-Day War and destroyed the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian armies in Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
More than 40 years ago, the Egyptians had driven a UN peacekeeping force from the Sinai-Israel border, had closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and air traffic and had deployed the equivalent of seven armored and infantry divisions …

Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin briefed the cabinet Wednesday on the progress of Operation Cast Lead.
According to Diskin, “Hamas has been attacked like it has never been attacked before. It has suffered significant damaged and its rule over Gaza has been compromised.”
Diskin also noted that large numbers of Hamas operatives are hiding in hospitals and that some are posing as medical staff. “Some are also hiding in mosques and some of those have been turned into headquarters, since they assumed Israel won’t attack them there. Their weapons’ labs have been …

Israel says it is ready for “long weeks of action” as it continues its fiercest air assault on Gaza for decades to stamp out militant rocket attacks.
Palestinian officials say 10 people died in the latest attacks, taking the death toll to over 360 since Saturday. Four Israelis have died in rocket fire.
Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit rejected any ceasefire until the threat of rockets was removed completely.
A UN human rights monitor accused Israel of “shocking atrocities”.

JERUSALEM: Israel is engaged in an “all-out war with Hamas,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Parliament on Monday as his air force struck at the organization’s civic institutions — the Islamic University, Interior Ministry and presidential guesthouse. The death toll surpassed 350, some 60 of them civilians, according to United Nations officials.
As the conflict passed its third day, with no active diplomacy and anti-Israel protesters taking to the streets around the Arab world, there appeared to be no quick end to the largest assault on Gaza in decades.

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — The international community piled pressure on Israel to halt its offensive in the Gaza Strip on Monday, as raids on the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas entered their third day.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon added his voice to the 15-member Security Council’s call for an immediate end to hostilities and urged Israel to allow humanitarian aid into the poverty-stricken territory.
“He deplores that violence is continuing today, and he strongly urges once again an immediate stop to all acts of violence,” which has already left more than …

Palestinians have fired more than 140 rockets and mortars into Israel proper over the course of the last two days, far less than forecast by the Israel Defense Forces. Yesterday, Palestinians launched upgraded Katyushas with a maximum range of 40 kilometers. The rockets landed in moshavim adjacent to Ashdod.
The two long-range Katyushas fired yesterday were made either in China or Iran. Their maximum range is just shy of 40 kilometers; those fired reached a maximum distance of 34.4 kilometers.

The head of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said Sunday that he had asked his fighters to be on alert for any possible Israeli attack on Lebanon following raids on Gaza that killed nearly 300 Palestinians.
In a televised address at a religious gathering marking the Shiite Day of Ashura south of Beirut, Nasrallah said “I have asked the brothers in the resistance in the south specifically to be present, on alert and cautious because we are facing a criminal enemy and we don’t know the magnitude of the conspiracies.”
“What …

Israel on Monday bombed the Islamic University and a government compound in Gaza City, key centers of Hamas power, in the third day of its aerial assault on the . Witnesses saw fire and smoke at the university, counting six separate airstrikes there just after midnight.
Other targets were a guest palace used by the Hamas government and the house next to Gaza Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s home in a refugee camp adjacent to Gaza City. He was not home, as Hamas leaders have gone into hiding.
In the southern town of …

The reported movement of troops toward Pakistan’s border with India on Friday raised the threat of war between the two nuclear-armed rivals and will distract Pakistan from fighting Taliban-led militants, security analysts said.
The specter of war also may be exaggerated to reduce international pressure on Pakistan to crack down on a militant group blamed for the deadly Mumbai attacks last month, analysts said.
Regardless, even the reports of troop movements made the crisis much more serious than before and could undo most of the progress the two countries had made in …

WASHINGTON: Due to India’s war rhetoric and potentially dangerous military moves, Pakistanis must be reassured that the country, though committed to fighting terrorism, is prepared to defend itself against any aggression, Islamabad’s envoy in Washington told CNN on Saturday.
Hussain Haqqani said Pakistan wanted to pursue terrorists in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan rather than go to war with India, adding the country also wanted to work with New Delhi to capture terrorists who were responsible for the Mumbai attacks.
“That said, over the last few days, we have reason …