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12-hour humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas went into force on Saturday morning, as top diplomats pressed efforts to secure a longer-term ceasefire. The fragile ceasefire began at 8:00 am (0500 GMT). Hamas said it and other groups in Gaza had reached “national consensus on a humanitarian truce”, and Israel later confirmed it would observe “a humanitarian window in the Gaza Strip”. The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza advised people not to approach bombed-out buildings and militant bases for fear of “explosive objects”. The Israeli military warned Gaza residents who had been told to evacuate their homes not to return...

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary of State John Kerry and the foreign ministers of Great Britain and France all are rushing to achieve a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Their motive — to end civilian suffering and restore stability to the area — is noble. The images of the wounded and dead resulting from the conflict are indeed agonizing. However, these senior statesmen can be most helpful now by doing nothing. To preserve the values they cherish and to send an unequivocal message to terrorist organizations and their state sponsors everywhere, Israel must be permitted to crush Hamas in...

Egypt's Air Sinai has continued its scheduled flights to Israel, despite the cancellation of flights by numerous American and European airlines, according to Calcalist. The Egyptian carrier runs four weekly flights to Ben-Gurion International Airport. The decision to continue flying to Israel must have been made at the highest echelons, and is meant to send a message to Hamas, which Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi regards with disdain, Calcalist reported. The Egyptian decision has prompted harsh criticism by many Arab web users on social networks.

At least 10,000 Palestinian protesters have rallied and are clashing with Israeli military forces in and around Jerusalem following an attack on a UN school. The main clash site is at Qalandiya, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, though there are now reports of uprisings in the Old City portion of Jerusalem itself. […] Israeli army officials have told AFP news agency that “riot dispersal means” were being used to control the protest. […] Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said several officers were injured by rocks thrown at them in Jerusalem and that about 20 protesters were arrested. …

Israel on Thursday called out a United Nations aid agency for falsely claiming that the Israeli Defense Forces did not permit civilians to evacuate a Gaza school where 15 people were killed in an Israeli attack, reports the Washington Free Beacon. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) laid blame for the civilian deaths on the IDF, claiming it never received approval from the IDF for an evacuation from the facility. UNRWA released a statement claiming, “UNRWA had been attempting to negotiate with the [IDF] a pause in the fighting during which they would guarantee a safe corridor to relocate...

Today at least 15 people were killed and many wounded when Israeli forces shelled a UN-run school in northern Gaza. UN Chief Ban Ki Moon condemned the attack. The IDF said it was looking into the matter. Last night the IDF told the Red Cross to evacuate civilians from the UNRWA shelter in Beit Hanoun. But Hamas refused to let the civilians leave the area.

Vilification of Hamas in Cairo has only increased since Operation Protective Edge erupted. CAIRO (AP) — In the Gaza war now in its third bloody week, Hamas’ battle isn’t only with Israel, even though that’s the country it is firing rockets at. The terrorist group that rules Gaza is demanding Egypt open its border with the tiny, blockaded strip of territory Even as it presents itself as a mediator in the conflict, Egypt is taking a hard line, refusing any opening that would strengthen Hamas, a group it accuses of fueling militancy on its soil. And so far, the Egyptian...

While Islamic Jihad remains an Iranian protégé, Hamas decided two and a half years ago to break with Iran and return to its natural Arab and Sunni home. This decision was sparked by the Iranian-backed Syrian government’s slaughter of its largely Sunni citizens, which generated pressure to sever ties from both fellow Palestinians and Arab states. But Hamas also thought this move wouldn’t exact too high an economic price, thanks to the support it received from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government. That calculation collapsed when Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was ousted last year; Egypt’s new government is waging war on the...

Israeli security forces have been put on heightened alert after two Palestinians were killed during a massive protest in the West Bank. The victims were among an estimated 10,000 people who clashed violently with soldiers and border police at a checkpoint in Qalandiya, between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Israel said today it had deployed thousands of security forces were deployed in and around Jerusalem to "deal with any disturbances". Sky's David Bowden in Ashkelon, near Israel's border with Gaza, said: "After Friday prayers who knows what might happen. We are coming to the end of Ramadan. All of this is boiling...

Israeli security forces shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded 150 other people Thursday night during a massive protest in the West Bank against Israel's military offensive in Gaza, Palestinian officials said.

Hamas and Palestinian Authority call for "day of rage" over Israeli assault on Gaza after two Palestinians killed in overnight riots north of Jerusalem. Hamas leaders, both in Gaza and abroad, have called for the start of the third intifada - or Palestinian uprising - after violent riots with live fire erupted throughout Jerusalem and the West Bank last night. Violence flared up as thousands of Palestinians took to the streets, rioting and protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza. Approximately 10,000 people marched from Ramallah to Jerusalem, where they clashed with Israeli police. In Gaza, Hamas TV played pro-intifada songs, while...

Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper on Thursday slammed the Huffington Post and reporter Sophie Jones, its Middle East correspondent, for the sensationalist headline, “‘They Just Wanted to Kill as Many People as Possible.”’ Cooper said the headline, accusing Israel of targeting civilians in its current war against Hamas in Gaza, and Jones’s reporting, “takes the art of lying and self-delusion to new depths.” The Huffington Post article quoted Israel Defense Forces Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, the IDF’s official spokesman, describing Israel’s policy and procedure to warn civilians before striking Gaza targets, but then accused Israel of targeting...

There is a growing consensus in the United States and around the world that the way to end the Israel-Gaza war is to disarm Hamas. President Obama seems to be the only hold-out. On July 24, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a resolution calling on the Obama Administration to make the disarming of Hamas a central part of any cease-fire proposal. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, is spearheading this effort together with Democratic Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Ben Cardin of Maryland. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on July 15 to...

First, the reassuring news: Americans’ pro-Israel sentiments remain near an all-time high, according to Pew’s latest numbers, and CNN measures public support for Israel’s recent actions against Hamas at a robust (57/43). Gallup’s latest nationwide survey, however, shows a much closer split on the righteousness of Israel’s defensive military campaign — although only a fractional minority is willing to defend Hamas’ terror campaign: According to Gallup’s internals, self-identifying Republicans are the primary reason Israel’s actions attract plurality support in this poll. GOP-leaners back Israel’s actions by a whopping 44-point margin; the numbers turn upside-down among independents (-10), and especially...

Americans are divided in their views of whether Israel's actions against the Palestinian group Hamas is "mostly justified" or "mostly unjustified," but they widely view Hamas' actions as mostly unjustified. Those results are similar to what Gallup measured 12 years ago during another period of heightened Israeli-Palestinian violence, and they are consistent with Americans' generally more positive views of the Israelis than of the Palestinians.

Thousands of Hamas-linked terrorists planned to invade Israel on the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah), which begins on September 24, according to an Israel security source. First reported by Ma'ariv, then in English by i24news, “thousands of terrorists were meant to cross over to Israel from Gaza through the tunnels and kill and kidnap as many Israelis as they could. The source added that the army learned about the huge planned attack during the interrogations of Hamas prisoners, captured during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.” Reports state that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed his cabinet about the foiled plot...

Tia Goldenberg, Associated PressJuly 25, 2014 A network of tunnels Palestinian militants have dug from Gaza to Israel — dubbed "lower Gaza" by the Israeli military — is taking center stage in the latest war between Hamas and Israel. Gaza's Hamas rulers view them as a military game changer in its conflict with Israel. The Israeli military says the tunnels pose a serious threat and that destroying the sophisticated underground network is a key objective of its invasion of Gaza. Israel has known about the tunnels for several years, but has been hard-pressed to find an effective way to block...

Israel’s Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu revealed on Thursday that Hamas was intending to attack Israel from dozens of tunnels in a coordinated simultaneous attack. At the beginning of Thursday’s special cabinet meeting the prime minister said, “These tunnels enable the enemy to open a multi-pronged offensive and carry out a massive terror attack inside Israel.” The attack Hamas was planning, the officials say, “would have made Israel drop to its knees.” They added that even the tunnels destroyed until now takes away from Hamas a strategic asset the terror group has been working on for years. Hamas has prepared a...

20:37 IST Israeli ministers have rejected ceasefire terms presented by Secretary of State John Kerry, Channel 2 reports. The ministerial vote was unanimous, it says. Earlier, it was reported that ministers were adamant that they would not accept a ceasefire that left the threat posed by Hamas’s terror tunnels unresolved.

Channel 10 reports that the diplomatic-security cabinet "flatly rejects" American proposals for a week-long humanitarian halt to fighting.