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Rome, 4 Dec.(AKI) - Muslim intellectuals in Italy have rejected a plan by the conservative government to halt the construction of new mosques, arguing that a shortage of mosques was making it more difficult to monitor radical Islam. The anti-immigrant Northern League, a coalition partner, has renewed calls to stop any more mosques being built. Its call followed the arrest on Tuesday of two Moroccans suspected of plotting terrorist attacks on several targets in the northern city of Milan. One of the suspects accused of planning attacks in Milan was a Muslim preacher at an Islamic cultural centre outside the...

(IsraelNN.com) Gaza terrorists escalated their attacks on the western Negev Wednesday morning, launching a barrage of Kassam rockets at the coastal city of Ashkelon shortly before 11:00 a.m. A number of strategic installations are located in the area, including an electric power plant. At least two of the more advanced types of the homemade missiles struck the southern section of the city, sending several people into severe emotional shock. Three workers at a factory in the city's industrial zone were evacuated to Barzilai Hospital after they complained of ringing in their ears following the attack. A third Kassam rocket slammed...

A Color Red alert was sounded in Ashkelon Monday, after rockets were launched at the city. Earlier, one man was killed from a rocket attack on a construction site in the city. (Shmulik Hadad)

Dec 29, 2008 9:55 | Updated Dec 29, 2008 16:32 Over 50 rockets strike South; 1 killed by Grad in Ashkelon By JPOST.COM STAFF Gaza terrorists fired over 50 projectiles at southern Israel Monday, the latest two rockets hitting the Ashkelon Beach region, causing no casualties or damage. Earlier Monday, Hanni Al-Mahdi, 27, of the Beduin town of Aroer in the Negev, was killed and at least 14 people were wounded when a Grad-type missile hit a construction site in Ashkelon's center. Of the wounded, five were reported to be in moderate-to-serious condition and the rest were lightly wounded. Several...

Rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists on Tuesday evening impacted in Ashdod and in Ashkelon, Channel 2 reported. There were no initial reports of casualties.

shkelon’s wide boulevards and seafront promenade are deserted, the few souls who do venture out quickly make their way back indoors, listening out for the wail of rocket warning sirens that are now setting the uncertain rhythm of their lives. Ashkelon, a coastal city of some 110,000 people, is reluctantly finding itself thrust onto the front line of the latest showdown in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with other cities unaccustomed to incoming fire such as Ashdod and Beersheva. “This is all new to us,” said Avichai Levi. Like other residents, he had never experienced anything like the rocket assault that...

Home Front Command's deputy chief says the rocket that struck the school in Beersheba was manufactured in China, is heavier than the Qassam and can "potentially cause much greater damage." He said the rocket contains metal pallets that can spread out across a radius of up to 100 meters (about 328 feet) from the point of impact.

Unwilling to control its fighters, who fired scores of missiles into Israel at the end of their six-month cease-fire, Hamas gave Israel the provocation it needed to deliver a savage blow to the Palestinian enclave in Gaza. Saturday was the bloodiest day in the history of the Palestinian people since being driven from their homes in the War of 1948. One thousand were killed or wounded as the Israeli Air Force conducted more than a hundred strikes. About Israel's right to defend its border towns, there is no dispute. When Hamas permits Gaza to be used as a launchpad for...

Today, people ask, why didn’t the Jews of Poland understand the Nazis were going to wipe them out, at least in the earlier period when escape or revolt was more possible? According to contemporary and later eyewitness testimony, because they didn’t think Germans would act in such an unpragmatic manner. After all, hundreds of thousands of Jews were involuntarily contributing to the German war effort. They were making clothes, repairing roads, growing food. Why should the Third Reich destroy a highly effective, very cheap, and low-problem labor force, thus crippling itself and helping to ensure that it lost the war?...

For most of the past 16 years or so, a seemingly benign specter has been haunting the world - namely, the notion that there exists a New Middle East, one that plays by rules very different from those in the Bad Old Middle East. Beginning with the first of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, Israel was launched by its own political leadership into a "peace process" whose main axiom was that the Old Middle East was dead and gone. Oslo was based on the assumption that what was needed to resolve the conflict was a sincere willingness on...

Moving beyond the question of international law, the charge that Israel is using a disproportionate amount of force in the Gaza Strip because of reports of Palestinian casualties has to be looked at critically. Israelis have often said among themselves over the last seven years that when a Hamas rocket makes a direct strike on a crowded school, killing many children, then Israel will finally act. This scenario raises the question of whether the doctrine of proportionality requires that Israel wait for this horror to occur, or whether Israel could act on the basis of the destructive capability of the...

Syrian President Bashar Assad on Saturday discussed prospects for peace in the Middle east with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Syria and Israel this year held four rounds of indirect talks mediated by Turkey, but the talks made no significant headway. Advertisement In Syria Carter is also expected to meet with the exiled leadership of Hamas, Khaled Meshal. Carter's first meeting with Meshal in April drew sharp criticism from the Bush administration which labels Hamas as a terrorist group.

Yesterday the MSM was all agog, practically guaranteeing that Israel would agree with the French Proposal for a 48 Hour Truce. Today the Israeli Cabinet gave its answer: "We didn't initiate the Gaza operation in order to end it while Israeli towns are still under fire, as they were before the operation...Israel has shown restraint for years; she gave the truce a chance; we told ourselves 'let's try it,' but Hamas violated the truce." Did Israel do the right thing? Absolutely !!! Let me explain:

Two years ago, the Dutch could quietly congratulate themselves on having brought what seemed to be a fair measure of consensus and reason to the meanest intersection in their national political life: the one where integration of Muslim immigrants crossed Dutch identity. Choosing a new government in 2006, just 24 percent of the voters considered the issue important, and only 4 percent regarded it as the election's central theme. What a turnabout, it seemed and whatever the reason, it was a soothing respite for a country whose history of tolerance was the first in 21st-century Europe to clash with the...

The "terrible massacre" occurring among the Palestinian people would never have happened if it hadn't been for the divisions among them, said Saudi Arabia's foreign minister at the opening of an emergency Arab League meeting Wednesday. Saud al-Faisal slammed the ongoing division of the Palestinians between the Islamist Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority, under Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank saying it opened the door to Israel's air strikes against the Gaza Strip. "This terrible massacre would not have happened if the Palestinian people were united behind one leadership speaking in one voice," he said at the league...

IsraelNN.com) Opposition leader, favored Prime Ministerial candidate and famed public speaker Binyamin Netanyahu is taking a break from politics to defend Israel in the international arena. Netanyahu gave 20 interviews on Tuesday alone to international television networks, explaining why justice is on Israel’s side in the current battle with Hamas. Hundreds of thousands of people in dozens of countries are estimated to have seen and heard him say that Israel has no choice but to respond to Hamas rockets. "It is as if there were an 'Al-Qaeda' with a base supported by Iran just outside of New York,” Netanyahu said...

SEO Guru Taps Facebook To Support Israel in Gaza War By Laurie Sullivan Online Media Daily Marketing and SEO Guru Joel Leyden is reaching out through search engine optimization and social media to help Jews and Christians express their support for the Israel Defense Force and Israeli civilians. The Facebook forum, "I Support the Israel Defense Forces In Preventing Terror Attacks From Gaza"--created about three hours after the first strikes were made in Gaza--explains Israel's position to the world, Leyden said. "The stickiness makes it a medium that lets people feel, rather than remain passive," he said. "You can put...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel rejected international pressure for a two-day cease-fire with Hamas and sent warplanes Wednesday to demolish smuggling tunnels that are the lifeline of Gaza's Islamic rulers. The diplomatic efforts to forge a truce were set in motion by the scale of destruction in Gaza since Israel unleashed an offensive Saturday against Hamas militants firing barrages of rockets that are striking closer to the Israeli heartland than previous attacks. Gaza officials say the five days of airstrikes have killed 390, including 200 uniformed members of Hamas security forces, and have wounded about 1,600. The U.N. says...

TEHRAN – The Zionist regime’s recent criminal acts against the people of Gaza are undoubtedly acts of genocide similar to the one committed by the Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki stated on Tuesday. Addressing foreign diplomats in Tehran, he deplored the international community’s inaction to halt war crimes in Gaza. “There is no doubt that the Zionist regime’s recent acts are in breach of the Geneva Convention and all other international rules and regulations,� he pointed out. “The Zionist regime’s crimes in the past sixty years are obvious examples of crime against humanity which...

Some Excerpts: Hamas, despite its terrorism, isn't al Qaeda. A conflict-ending agreement with Israel will require a unified Palestinian house with Hamas included, agreeing to recognize Israel and end violence. Third, Obama will need to flood Gaza with humanitarian aid and development assistance for the economy. Boycotting economic assistance for 1.5 million Palestinians in hopes of toppling or pressuring Hamas makes no sense. The United States must orchestrate, or at least participate in, a new economic initiative for Gaza, and it will need Israel's support for this. Fourth, the administration should continue to support Abbas with economic aid, training for...

Volunteer suicide bombers seek to attack Israel By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran – Hard-line Iranian student groups have asked the government to authorize volunteers to go carry out suicide bombings in Israel in response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip. The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had not responded to the call by Wednesday. Five hard-line student groups and a conservative clerical group launched a registration drive on Monday, seeking volunteers to carry out suicide attacks against Israel.

Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip for the fourth day straight on Tuesday. Gaza officials said that, as of Monday, 364 Palestinians have been killed, and the United Nations noted that at least 62 were civilians. How did the U.N. determine which of the victims were combatants? Gender and age. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency came up with the figure by sending emissaries to visit hospitals and other medical facilities. Under the Geneva Conventions and subsequent international law treaties, civilians are those who do not belong to the armed forces, militias, or organized resistance movements....

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. Army is investigating allegations that Special Forces troops killed an al Qaeda suspect in cold blood and cut off his finger during an overnight operation near Baghdad earlier this month. The U.S. Army is investigating the killing of Iraqi bomb-making suspect, Hardan al-Jaburi. The December 10 raid, on a house in the Salman Pak district, 15 miles south of Baghdad, targeted suspected bomb-maker Hardan al-Jaburi. In a statement, the U.S. military said al-Jaburi, armed with an AK-47, confronted troops conducting the raid. "Perceiving hostile intent, the forces engaged the armed man, killing him," the...

The article is in Hebrew, so anyone who can read it is welcome to check out the link, but the following photos are from the article: While the exact location has not been disclosed in order to avoid providing artillery spotting intelligence to the terrorists, the release of this photo of the vicinity was permitted, and you can see the playground and weightlifting equipment in the background. This shows the shrapnel's effects on a steel fence, which helped deflect the blast from an adjacent bus stop and playing fields. Memorials to earlier victims of terrorists were placed on the bench.

I've been going through Daylife, which is a photo service encompassing AP, Reuters, and other news services. The captions are provided by the respective news services. These photos are in reverse chronological order (most recent at the top), and shows just how the media bias creeps in. [...]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel rejected international pressure to suspend its air offensive against Palestinian militants whose rocket barrages are striking close to the Israeli heartland, sending warplanes Wednesday to demolish smuggling tunnels that are the lifeline of Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers.

NEW DELHI (AFP) — India on Wednesday said Pakistan was in "denial" over the Mumbai attacks and refusing to acknowledge evidence linking the gunmen who carried out the assault with elements in Pakistan. "If anyone is in a state of denial, anything that we give will be denied," Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters. The minister said the Pakistani father of the sole surviving gunman had confirmed to Pakistan television that his son was involved. "If that is not evidence then what is?" Chidambaram said. The November attacks in Mumbai left 172 dead, including nine of the gunmen whom India...

In the summer of 2006, after Iran’s surrogate, Hezbollah, had repeatedly rained missiles into Israel from Lebanon – and then killed and kidnapped some Israeli soldiers, the world condemned Israel for retaliating to stop the missile attacks and recover her soldiers. Now again, after continuous provocation by the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, who sneak into Israel to plant bombs and kill people and who also hurl missiles daily into Israel, Israel is again being condemned by the anti-Semites of the world for defending herself. If a country on our border, like Mexico, were to launch missiles into the United States,...

NATO's vital supply link through the Northwest Frontier Province has been shut down as the Pakistani military launched an operation to clear the Taliban from the area. "Supplies to NATO forces have temporarily been suspended," Tariq Hayat Khan, the Khyber agency's political agent, told reporters. The main road between Peshawar and the border town of Torkham has been closed as the military launched attacks using "artillery, tanks and, helicopter gunships," Geo News reported. It is unclear if the operation is being led by the Army or the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

Shin Bet chief briefs cabinet on day five of Gaza offensive, says terror operatives hide in hospitals, mosques. IDF: Hamas increases use of densely populated areas for launching pads. 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...

Israel Gaza War — On Facebook Face-to-Facebook combat: The “I Support the Israel Defense Forces In Preventing Terror Attacks From Gaza” Facebook group page. By Sharon Udasin The Jewish Week As war rages in the Gaza Strip, a parallel stream of cyber combat grinds on in perhaps today’s most populated Web forum and networking hub, Facebook.com. Two hours after the first Israel air strikes against Hamas on Saturday, American-Israeli public relations leader and Israel Defense Force veteran Joel Leyden created a Facebook “group” titled “I Support the Israel Defense Forces In Preventing Terror Attacks From Gaza.” By Monday afternoon, the...

According to a report published by the Hamas-affiliated Palestine Information Center Web site, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has ordered his officials in Ramallah to set up an "emergency room" to prepare for reassuming control over the Gaza Strip after the Hamas government is toppled by Israel.

As we have asserted from the day one, it is almost certain by now that the Gaza campaign was an election show and lacked political objectives. Israeli tanks are massed at the border with Gaza for four days but don't cross into the hostile territory. IAF continues sporadic raids against non-viable targets. Resurgent Hamas pounds Israel with dozens of rockets as far as Beersheba, hit Israel's major highway. Israeli leftists joined her Arabs to push for ceasefire. Peace Now, Meretz, and Avodah joined hands against the invasion. Israeli government is split on the army's suggestion to offer Hamas ceasefire. Hamas,...

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel on Wednesday rebuffed French calls for a 48-hour humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip and stepped up preparations for a possible ground offensive after Hamas's long-range rockets hit a major population center.

they have Humanitarian crisis to solve in Darfur and in Zimbabwe and a lot more people have suffered a great deal more in either of those areas

FORMER defence minister Brendan Nelson came close to being killed by an enemy rocket while on a secret visit to Baghdad. As Dr Nelson toured the "green" zone with Australian troops on April 21, 2007, a Katyusha rocket exploded nearby. The "indirect fire" incident has been kept secret by the military. In answer to The Daily Telegraph's questions about the incident, the Defence Department has admitted rockets landed within 500m of "Australian personnel". "There were no injuries or damage to equipment reported in this attack," a spokesman said. "Rocket attacks within the International Zone were routine occurrences during that period."

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is under "tremendous pressure" from the US to extradite Lashkar-e-Taiba operations commander Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks, to India, a media report said on Wednesday. The Americans are believed to have given Pakistan a taped conversation Lakhvi allegedly had with gunmen involved in attacks on Mumbai on November 26. American audio experts had checked the tape and concluded it was genuine and that the speaker was Lakhvi, the Dawn newspaper quoted US and diplomatic sources as saying. Though Indian officials had been saying for some time that Lakhvi should be handed over...

Hamas acts like a couple of naughty 12 year old boys looking for excitement and poking at a hornets' nestwhat do they expect to get from their actions? a cheap thrill ? a raison de etre?Israel must insure that Hamas does not get from this whatever it is they were seekingthe only thing that can be done now is to place Gaza under martial lawIt should have been kept that way back in 2005. events leading up to this weeks' action clearly show that the militant opposition will make every advantage possible from any concession given themI have never hear...

GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas rockets hit the major Israeli city of Beersheba on Wednesday and Israel described as unrealistic a French proposal for a 48-hour truce that would allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. Foreign powers have increased pressure on both sides to halt hostilities and Israeli officials made clear that Israel had not rejected the French plan outright and was open to amendments. But ahead of a meeting of Israel's security cabinet, political commentators predicted public anger over the widening of the rocket attacks to include Beersheba, 40 km (24 miles) from the Gaza Strip, would tip...

Israel's deadly air offensive in the Gaza Strip has sparked clashes between Palestinian gunmen and Egyptian security forces. Nearly 300 Palestinians, most of them armed militants, have been killed since Israel launched the offensive on Saturday. Hundreds of Palestinians breached the Gaza border fence in four places and poured into Egypt on Sunday. Egyptian police opened fire, prompting gun battles with Palestinian militants. Several hours later, Egyptian officials said border guards restored order. The breach followed Israel's bombing of 40 tunnels in Gaza used by the ruling Islamic militant group Hamas to smuggle weapons and supplies across Egypt's Sinai Peninsula....

Israel has rejected an immediate 48-hour cease-fire with Hamas, saying it will push ahead with its military assault on the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials say Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his defense and foreign ministers made the decision after discussing the French-proposed truce during a meeting overnight. Israeli war planes continued their assault on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip for a fifth-day Wednesday, despite mounting international pressure for an end to the violence. Officials say the missiles hit Hamas government buildings and tunnels used to smuggle food and weapons into Gaza from Egypt. Hamas also is continuing to fire...

COLMES: What should happen next? JOHN BOLTON: Well, I think this depends on what the government of Israel wants to do. I must say, I have flashbacks to the summer of 2006. The Israeli rhetoric is pretty intense. Defense Minister Ehud Barak saying this is going to be a fight to the death with Hamas. Much as government leaders in 2006 said they were going to eliminate Hezbollah. It's a risky proposition for Israel not to carry through on that because Hezbollah in the view of many emerged as the victim in that war simply by surviving, and Hamas might...

Arabs, mainly immigrants from Palestine, are expressing their frustration and anger over President-elect Barack Obama's silence over Israeli strikes on Gaza Strip and asserting that this shows that there would be little change in the pro-Tel Aviv policies of the US. In television interviews, they did not buy Obama's argument that there is only one president at a time, pointing out that he had been speaking about what he would do about economy and on terrorist attacks on Mumbai. But analysts say that the comparison with Mumbai attacks is not correct as currently diplomatic efforts are being made to pacify...

WASHINGTON: As Israel kept up its string of attacks on Gaza for a fourth day that has killed hundreds and injured hundreds more through air attacks, US President George W. Bush leaned on Palestinian leaders to urge Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel. Israel has said it will not cease its assault until Hamas stops firing missiles into its territory. White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said yesterday in Crawford, Texas that Bush telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to discuss a “sustainable cease-fire” in the Gaza Strip. “They agreed that for any cease-fire to be...

A bottle of flammable liquid was hurled at one of Chicago's oldest synagogues, catching fire but not causing major damage. No one was injured in the incident early Monday at Temple Sholom of Chicago. Chicago police and the Chicago fire department are investigating the arson as a hate crime. No one was in custody Monday. Police officer Daniel O'Brien says the fire burned itself out and never ignited the North Side building. He says investigators are working to get surveillance equipment from the area. Roger Rudich, president of the temple, says the arson was unsettling but not damaging.

Hillary Clinton is forming a 'hit squad' of special envoys who will be sent to the world's troublespots to try to prevent conflict breaking out. The diplomats will form the spearhead of the US state department as the new secretary of state seeks a bigger role for her office in Barack Obama's new government. The former first lady has wasted no time as she begins building up her team in preparation for taking over as America's most senior diplomat from Condoleezza Rice next month. Hillary Clinton with President Elect Barack Obama. Sources say that the former first lady is seeking...

Hamas flexed its muscles Tuesday night and fired two rockets into Beersheba as Defense Minister Ehud Barak asked for government approval to call up an additional 2,500 reservists ahead of a planned ground operation in the Gaza Strip. One of the Katyusha rockets struck a kindergarten in Beersheba, causing damage. Another rocket hit outside the city in an open field. The IDF bombed the launcher of the Grad-model rockets afterward, as well as the cell responsible. The army said it successfully hit its target. Defense officials had warned that Hamas had the ability to fire rockets into Beersheba - located...

The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday that Israeli Defense Forces aircraft bombed suspected Hamas terror laboratories located at the Hamas-run Islamic University of Gaza (IUG). According to the article, IUG professors were using the labs to build explosives for the terrorist organization. A BBC report confirmed that the IUG science building was the target of the Israeli retaliatory strikes. Thus far unreported is that the IUG science and technology lab was financed and constructed with the assistance of the Dublin, Ohio-based Arab Student Aid International (ASAI). In fact, the IUG website has a page dedicated to ASAI’s ongoing contributions to...

breaking on CNN TV

As Israel continues to bomb the Hamas in the Gaza section of Palestine , Muslims in London have taken to the streets in protest. They are of course calling for Israel to stop killing their terrorist brothers. Since Israel is continuing with their military operations, the Muslim protesters have turned to rioting.