“[I]n an echo-chamber fed by ubiquitous updates on Hamas rocket and tunnel attacks, the minority of local voices that do agonize over Gazans’ suffering are being silenced in a way rarely seen in a country long proud of its spirited, democratic debate” …
- Dissent Quieted With Most Israelis Behind Gaza War (AP / abc News)
… while “Islamic State, the al Qaeda splinter group which has seized parts of Syria and Iraq, has told activists in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province they must swear allegiance to it and submit to censorship, a monitoring group said on Friday”:
Israel says they killed the child by “mistake,” but does this sound like a “mistake” to you? “This is commander. Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over” …
… and in “one of the worst mass-casualty incidents of the three-week war” the number of U.N. schools “in the Gaza Strip to be rocked by explosions during the conflict” rises to six:
IDFÂ shelling kills about 40 Palestinians as Israel terminates the cease-fire claiming Hamas has captured one of its soldiers:
- Dozens are Killed in Gaza as Cease-fire Agreement Falls Apart (Christian Science Monitor)
- Israel says truce over after soldier apparently captured in Gaza (Reuters)
- Why Captured Israeli Soldier Raises the Stakes for Israel and Hamas (Christian Science Monitor)
Women were sharing photos on Twitter of themselves laughing … after Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc’s comments that not laughing out loud in public is among requirements of being an honorable woman”, and one wished he would “deal with frequent male violence against women” instead:
- Turkish Women Protest Deputy PMs No Laughter Quip (AP / abc News)
“U.S. officials say they are considering ways to help the Kurds defend themselves, but direct provision of arms to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), in the way Washington arms Iraq’s central government in Baghdad, appears highly unlikely”:
“The ACLU says the plaintiffs do not know precisely why they have been scrutinized, and the lawsuit complains that immigrants denied under CARRP are not given a meaningful way to respond, in violation of due process guarantees enshrined in the U.S. Constitution”:
- Muslim Residents Sue U.S. over Citizenship Denials (Al Arabiya)
“The murder of a state-backed imam in China’s Xinjiang region underscores an escalation in 18 months of violence and could be part of a bid by extremists to persuade moderate Muslim Uighurs to turn against Beijing’s controlled current of Islam”:
