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An Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza has killed three senior Hamas military commanders as Israel vowed to continue its campaign, the BBC reports.
Mohammed Abu Shamala, Mohammed Barhoum and Raed al-Attar died in the air strike near the southern town of Rafah, Hamas told media.
They were among six people killed, Palestinian rescue services said.
Hostilities resumed on Tuesday, with each side blaming the other for the collapse of peace talks in Cairo.
Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian during clashes at a protest against Israeli military action in Gaza, in the West Bank village of Silwad, near Ramallah on Aug. 15. (Photo: 
Reuters, Mohamad Torokman)
Israel’s Shin Bet security service said Monday it had thwarted a Hamas coup attempt in the West Bank aimed at toppling Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, though it offered few details, claiming that the plot was planned by a Hamas official who is based in Turkey and “enjoys the support of local officials there.”
In recent months, the Shin Bet said it had arrested more than 90 Hamas operatives, confiscated dozens of weapons that had been smuggled into the West Bank and more than $170,000 aimed at funding attacks. It produced photos of the confiscated weapons and cash and a flowchart of the Hamas operatives who had been questioned.
The Shin Ben said the plot was orchestrated by senior Hamas official Salah Arouri, who is based in Turkey and enjoys the support of the local officials there. The idea was to set up cells in major West Bank cities. Hamas had no immediate comment to the claim.
Hamas overtook the Gaza Strip in 2007 from forces loyal to Abbas. It is currently negotiating in Cairo over a cease-fire to formally end the Gaza war.
A five-day cease-fire expires later Monday.
The monthlong Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, according to Palestinian and UN officials. Israel has lost 67 people, all but three of them soldiers.
The fighting was precipitated by Israeli arrests of Hamas members in the West Bank following the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers. The Shin Bet said it uncovered the coup plot due to information gleaned from the arrests.
The three teens – Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel – were slain in June in the West Bank. Their killings were followed by the slaying of a Palestinian youth in what was a likely revenge attack.
The Gaza war began on July 8 with Israeli airstrikes. Nine days later, Israel sent in ground troops to destroy Hamas’ underground cross-border tunnels constructed for attacks inside Israel.
Also on Monday, Israeli troops demolished the homes of two militants suspected in the abduction and killing of the three Israeli teenagers and sealed up the home of a third.
BY Kaziwa Salih
Iraqi authorities and some Arab politicians were swift, lunching a media- war against Kurds as a consequence of the recent oil trade between Kurdistan and Israel. They consider this deal to be an immense treason toward the Palestinian conflict. This allegation represents Arab duality, first to Palestinian cause and second to their political perspectives of the new world order. It indicates their unworthy analyzation of the Kurd-Arab relevance on one hand, and the Kurd- Israel historical affiliation on the other.
Arab leaders and their politicians’ concern about Palestine issue comes to light only throughout their political crisis and election time, using it as pretext to mislead citizens of what so called Pan- Arabism having a unified voice. Veracity confirms contradictions of their assertions, the amount of funds poured into terrorist groups by certain Arab countries, unnecessary spending on luxuries can put an end to poverty in Palestinian territories; can provide a better health care to Palestinians, and better education for children. Yet, if Iraq’s al-Maliki administration that is threatening to take legal action against Oil buyers were mandated to select between Palestine and Iran to aid, he would pick Iran with no hesitation. Palestinians are fully conscious of this double standard.
Historically proven, that Kurds are the only people on this planet, which are not revengeful towards their persecutors and extend a peaceful hand to them. Believing peace and democracy are only appropriate approaches leading the new world order. However, it seems, this benevolence is too hard to digest by Arab oppressors. In fact, if you ask Arab individuals why they hate Jews, their excuse would hold on Palestine issue. Even though Arabs have killed Kurds persistently, and genocide them, they assume not to only praise their governments, but also support them and fight for their aim. This duality of Arab determination on political stages is corresponded to lack of political sage and competence.
Likewise, obviously since persecutors of Kurds do not accept multi-religious society. They do not acknowledge the fact that Kurdish society is multi-religious. Including Jews, Christians, Bahai, Yezidi and Muslims are practicing their beliefs freely. This indicates that Kurds neither have Jewphobia nor hatred toward other religion. For the Kurdish Jews was a double jeopardy. They were persecuted for their belief and nationality by Iraqi government. They were forcibly displaced and deported to Israel. Thus, Kurdish Jewish community is one of the largest in Israel and prospering. In contrast to Kurds in Middle East Kurds in Israel are protected. This historical event bonded the Kurdish-Israel relation.
Arab society and Iraqi administration particularly should rethink of the way they are pursuing other none Arab communities and forcing them to have similar view against Israel and Jews. They should stop exposing their hate speech on other communities; stop misusing Palestinians’ pain. For centuries Muslim and Arab nations in Middle East are unhappy with western countries and America; unhappy with Israel; unhappy with Kurds, Coptic, Assyrian, Chaldean and all other none Arabs and non-Muslims. Ultimately they are unhappy with themselves and killing each other. This consequence confirms their dogmatic political perceptive of the new world order, therefore, it needs political reconstruction that depicts peace and democratic conclusions.
July 6, 2014
As fighting in Gaza escalates, controlling ‘the truth’ may be as important as military campaigns.
By Paul D. Shinkman July 31, 2014
The fighting in Gaza is an information battle as much as it is about violence. Both the invading Israel Defense Forces and its foes Hamas – the militant political party that governs the coastal strip – rely on an ability to “spin” the tragic outcomes of war to reassure their own citizens, undermine their opponents and attempt to convince the rest of the world their cause is worth supporting.
The nature of this latest conflict, however, has drawn scrutiny from across the globe as news outlets and governments alike report wide-scale deaths and abuses by fighters on both sides. A growing coalition of international powers has become critical of what it perceives as Israel’s heavy-handedness in its violent response. Yet Israel and some of its allies don’t feel the need to justify its pursuit of Hamas any further than pointing to its classification as a terrorist organization.
On the ground, both Israelis and Palestinians believe the other side wishes to annihilate their very way of life, and likely don’t have the time or motivation to question the veracity of the reports they hear.
Or perhaps that kind of accuracy doesn’t matter. As George Orwell said, “All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.”
Israel has invested massive amounts of time and effort into polishing its external image, hiring well-groomed and articulate representatives to speak on behalf of their government. Israel Defense Forces Lt. Col. Peter Lerner appears frequently on outlets such as CNN, BBC and Al-Jazeera, explaining his country’s concerns with a refined English accent.
Hamas, however, has fewer resources and fewer spokespeople to use to appeal to Western audiences. Its delegate to Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, for example, speaks with a strong Arabic accent and is not as fluent in English as his Israeli counterparts.
The same perception is true on social media. The @IDFSpokesperson Twitter account routinely updates its followers on military campaigns in and around Israel, using snappy graphics and subtle messaging to drive home its point.
Hamas, however, is unable to maintain an English-language Twitter account without it being blocked for content violations. Its main source of social media messaging exists through an Arabic-only presence. @QassamFeed, a Twitter account for Qassam Brigades, the organization’s military wing, soared in popularity this summer, eliciting citations from high-profile news outlets. Twitter shut down the account in mid-July citing privacy and security concerns, according to the Christian Science Monitor. The social media company did not elaborate on its decision, but it could be related to policies barring illegal activity and Hamas’ official status as a terrorist organization.
Beyond their respective public faces, neither Israel nor Palestine is exactly a shining example of an open and fair media system. Palestine ranks 138th of 180 countries for press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders, the nonprofit that advocates internationally for journalists’ and news organizations’ rights. The media spectrum there is listed as a “very difficult situation,” wedging it between Libya and Chad on the press rights rankings.
[READ: What Would Happen if Hamas Lost Its Rockets?]
But Israel, a staunch ally of the U.S. and considered by most to be a Westernized country, ranks not much higher on the list at 96th. (The U.S., by contrast, is 46th, and the U.K. is 33rd. Finland is at the very top of the list). In the Jewish state, RWB reports, “freedom of information is often sacrificed to purported security requirements.”
Source: US Today
Chile, Peru and Salvador decided to recall their ambassadors from Israel for consultations over Gaza events, RIA Novosti reported.
They have joined Ecuador and Brazil that have already recalled the envoys.
The leadership of Latin American states have stated non-proportional use of force by Israel is unacceptable and called for ceasefire at the same time condemning rocket attacks on peaceful population of Israel.
The government of Chile issued a public communiqué describing Israeli operation in Gaza as collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population.
The government of Peru has expressed deep regret in connection with violation of the cease-fire and with new military operations in the Gaza Strip.
Report TODAY’S ZAMAN / ISTANBUL
Turkey’s mutual trade volume with Israel is expected to reached over $5 billion this year, the government said on Tuesday, representing a nearly 50 percent rise over 2009.
Mutual trade volume was $3.4 billion in 2009.
“We have a balanced trade with Israel … our mutual trade volume has reached $5 billion,” Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekçi said on Tuesday in Ankara. The minister’s statements come on the heels of opposition calls on the government to revise trade ties with Israel in response to ongoing bloodshed following Israeli air, naval and ground strikes in Gaza. Zeybekçi said much of Turkish sales to Gaza and the West Bank also go through Israeli customs.
When criticism over Turkey’s growing trade ties with Israel first surfaced two weeks ago, some government figures rushed to deny a boost in trade with Israel. Figures, however, show Turkey and Israel are enjoying a boom in mutual trade, especially after the deadly Mavi Marmara attack in 2010 which nearly brought diplomatic ties to a halt.
Figures from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) indicate that exports from Turkey to Israel doubled between 2004 and 2013. Common exports included iron and steel, electrical machinery, vehicles, minerals and textiles. Turkey sold goods worth a total of $2.65 billion to Israel in 2013. This was 1.7 percent of Turkey’s total $151.8 billion in exports in 2013. According to data from the Turkish Ministry of Customs and Trade, imports from Israel increased by 3.5 times from 2004 to reach $2.4 billion last year.
Ankara’s alleged involvement in crude oil supply to Israel is also being scrutinized.
A report published on the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Tuesday said an oil tanker, United Emblem, loaded with a $100 million in cargo set sail from Turkey’s Ceyhan port in late May. After zigzagging in the Mediterranean the tanker met another tanker, the SCF Altai, off the Malta coast. The United Emblem transferred its crude to the Altai, which eventually brought the Kurdish oil to Israel’s Ashkelon port on June 22. According to WSJ, Baghdad, which objects to third parties being involved in selling Kurdish oil on international markets, had nothing to do with the transaction after the crude reached Ashkelon because it had no diplomatic relations with Israel.
Iraq’s Kurds have prospered since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, while ruling themselves under a settlement under which all Iraqi oil was sold by the government in Baghdad, and the Kurdish region was given a fixed percentage of the total income.
A report from the Aydınlık daily entitled “Israeli planes using fuel from Tayyip to strike Gaza” was released earlier this month, alleging that Turkey had exported jet fuel to Israel. Energy Minister Taner Yıldız subsequently rejected the claim, saying that Turkey had made no such exports.
“As the Turkish Republic, we have not sold Israel any sort of oil or jet fuel. We have transit sales that are conducted with other firms and other countries; the oil that is shipped through BTC (the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline) goes to those countries,” said Yıldız.
However, recently released figures from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) indicate that Turkey did in fact export 124 tons of jet fuel to Israel during the month of March.
A report in the daily Taraf on Monday claimed that SOCAR, an Azerbaijani firm that owns 50 percent of the pro-government daily Star, has been selling Azerbaijani oil to Israel via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
A recent article by energy expert Tuğce Varol Sevim claimed that nearly 30 percent of Israel’s oil needs are met via shipments sent through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
Former National Defense Undersecretary Murat Bayar stated in April of 2011 that Turkey was no longer purchasing arms from Israel, and that Turkey had weapons-purchasing arrangements from several other countries but Israel was no longer among them.
However, a document sent from the Turkish Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE) to the Turkish Chamber of Shipping (DTO) dated September 3 of last year revealed that an order of more than 31,000 rounds of tank ammunition was to be sent from Israel’s Haifa port to İstanbul.
Israel Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Organization President General Aiveli told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last year that weapons exports to Turkey had never completely halted.
Turkey has been known for purchasing defense systems technology from Israel, purchasing dozens of F4 modernization and radar systems from Israel costing hundreds of millions of dollars. In another purchase, Turkey bought 170 M60 tank modernization units at a cost of $680 million. In 2005, Turkey purchased 10 Heron aerial vehicles from Israel at a total cost of $183 million.
Source: TODAY’S ZAMAN / ISTANBUL
RT Report
Following and Israeli forces’ shelling of a Gaza City district which killed at least 60 civilians, including children, Palestinian president Mahmoud 
Abbas has called for an emergency session of the UN Security Council over the “massacre in Shejaia.”
I am calling for an urgent session tonight of the UN Security Council,” he said in a televised speech from the Qatari capital Doha. “The situation is intolerable,” he said. “What the occupation forces did today in Shejaia is a crime against humanity,” Abbas said. “Those who committed it will not go unpunished.”
As the IDF continues the operation in Gaza, Abbas arrived in Qatar on Sunday to discuss a potential ceasefire with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and UN chief Ban Ki-moon.
Ban condemned the “atrocious action” in Shejaia and urged Israel to “exercise maximum restraint.”
“Too many innocent people are dying (and) living in constant fear,” he said at news conference in Doha.
WARNING: Graphic video of the shelling aftermath in Shejaia
“At least 60 dead in Shejaia alone, and hundreds wounded,” Medhat Abbas, Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza told mondoweiss.net. He added, “I don’t have the number now because there is no electricity, no nothing.”
“The Israeli aggression against civilians should be stopped,” said al-Shifa’s hospital administrator.
So far the official death toll stands at 62 Palestinians, as Israel heavily shelled Gaza’s eastern suburb of Shejaia battling the alleged Hamas militants in the bloodiest fighting in the 13-day offensive, medical spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP. Officials said 35,000 people fled the fighting in Gaza on Sunday as the artillery bombardment began.
The ambulances and fire trucks moved in to Shejaia at 10:30GMT after the announcement of a two-hour truce to retrieve the dead and wounded.
Inside the shelled neighborhoods, scores of people lay dead, others were wounded with scenes of entire buildings destroyed. Houses were still ablaze from the IDF onslaught, with corpses burnt almost beyond recognition, with the dead being both young and old, including children.
But in a few hours, the shelling resumed as the IDF announced Hamas had breached the truce and it was responding “accordingly.”
The injured from Shejaia were rushed to Gaza City’s central Shifa Hospital. Chaos reigned inside the hospital as wounded children were brought to the overflowing emergency room, forcing the medical staff to treat the wounded in a hallway. Those who could still walk fled to some of the 61 UN shelters with more than 81,000 people from all over Gaza strip taking sanctuary in them, the refugee agency said.
New York time report
As Israeli troops and war planes bombarded Gaza, both sides reported death tolls that made clear Sunday was the deadliest day so far in the war. The Palestinian 
Health Ministry reported 87 Palestinians had died and the Israeli military said 13 soldiers were dead.
The fighting signaled that what had begun as a limited ground invasion by Israel had moved into a more extensive and costlier phase for both sides.
Most of the Palestinians were killed in an eastern neighborhood of Gaza City called Shejaiya. For the Palestinians, it was the deadliest episode since July 8, when Israel began its offensive, first from the air, which was intended to curb rocket fire against its cities and the danger of infiltration through tunnels running under the border from Gaza into Israel. The Gaza Health Ministry reported that more than 300 people were injured in Shejaiya. Tolls were not available from the refugee camps in central Gaza, where fleeing residents reported a similar Israeli advance, with artillery.
READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/world/middleeast/gaza-israel.html?emc=edit_na_20140720
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Israel on Saturday of having “surpassed Hitler in barbarism” through its attacks on Gaza,
Erdoğan continued to ratchet up his rhetoric against Israel over its offensive, threatening to further harm already badly frayed relations between the two countries, once regional allies.
Hours earlier Israel advised its citizens against traveling to Turkey, citing “the public mood” after attacks on Israeli diplomatic missions during protests in İstanbul and Ankara against the Gaza offensive on Friday.
Palestinian officials say more than 330 people have been killed by Israeli strikes launched in response to rockets fired into Israeli territory by militants loyal to Hamas.
“(Israelis) have no conscience, no honor, no pride. Those who condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism,” Erdoğan told supporters at a political rally in the Black Sea city of Ordu. He accused the United States of defending Israel’s “disproportionate” tactics, and bemoaned the failure of the Muslim world to take a stronger stance.
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz reminded Turkish PM of Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman forces.
In response to Erdogan’s accusations against Israel, Katz said more than a million Armenians were murdered by Ottoman troops in 1915, Arutz Sheva reported.
“In 1915 the Turks massacred a million and a half Armenians and he accuses us, who are fighting his friends in the Islamic movement, of genocide? Who wants a relationship with such a person?” wrote Katz.
His remark came in response to a harsh criticism of Erdogan who accused Israel of “ systematic genocide and terrorism” in Gaza. “Israel threatens world peace,” Turkish PM said.