U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during her talks in Israel this week not to take any extreme actions in response to the Palestinian move in the United Nations for recognition as a non-member state. Clinton said such steps against the Palestinian Authority could bring about its collapse. The Palestinians are planning to ask the United Nations General Assembly to vote on upgrading its status from non-member entity on the symbolic date of November 29. The day after the cease-fire with Hamas took effect, Israel is preparing for the next crisis with the Palestinians, which is scheduled for six days from now. November 29th is the anniversary of the United Nations vote on accepting the Partition Plan in 1947, which led to the founding of the Jewish Sate. It is also the United Nations' International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

Washington is urging Israel not to allow construction in the area known as E-1 between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim as a possible response to the Palestinian bid for statehood recognition next week at the UN, The Jerusalem Post has learned. Building in E-1, which would create contiguity between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim to the northeast beyond the Green Line, is something various Israeli governments have long wanted to do, but which US opposition has prevented.

Inside a courtyard, there are faded remnants of “Congratulations from the uncles,” from the April wedding of a son of Ahmed al-Jabari, the commander of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, whose assassination last week was the beginning of the latest round of intense battle between Israel and the Gaza Strip. On the wall outside, the colorful Arabic script reads “Welcome hajji, Abu Muhammad,” a reference to Mr. Jabari’s return from a pilgrimage to Mecca last month. Nearby, the freshest paint pronounces a message from the troops: “Rest in peace. The mission has been accomplished.”

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's army spokeswoman says an Israeli Arab who is a member of Hamas has been arrested for Wednesday's bus bombing in Tel Aviv. The bombing injured 27 people near Israel's military headquarters and threatened to scuttle efforts to broker a cease-fire to end fighting between Israel and Gaza. Israeli military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich reported Thursday on Twitter that authorities had arrested the man who planted the bomb on the bus and identified him as an Arab Israeli from the village of Taybeh. She said he was a member of Hamas.

Answer: U.S. officials discussed a range of issues with their Israeli counterparts with respect to the conflict in Gaza, including our concerns for the safety and security of civilians in both Israel and Gaza, which includes journalists in Gaza. In any armed conflict, journalists must be respected and protected from any form of intentional attack. Appropriate measures should be taken to ensure the safety and security of journalists as much as possible.

"Abu Mazen never troubled to bring the residents of Gaza close to him," he reportedly said. He does not like Gaza, and if he could get rid of it, he would be happy to do so.... One way or another, Abu Mazen’s time is more or less up. The problem is who will replace him.

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched 12 rockets into Israel during the hour after a ceasefire was announced between Israel and Islamist militants on Wednesday, an Israeli police spokesman said.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement to stick to pledges under a ceasefire deal which came into effect on Wednesday to end the eight-day conflict around the Gaza Strip. "We urge the parties who agreed to the ceasefire to keep their promises. There may be challenges implementing this agreement," Ban told reporters after talks with King Abdullah at the monarch's residence in the Jordanian capital.Ban urged the two sides to exercise "maximum restraint".

#gaza celebrates ceasefire twitter.com/arwaCNN/status…

Within minutes of the ceasefire kicking in, gunmen emerged on the streets of Gaza City to celebrate with long bursts of gunfire, cheering and chanting of victory slogans. Despite a warning from Hamas controlled TV and radio not to go out on the streets until it is clear the ceasefire was holding, young men who had not dared venture on to the streets with their weapons in recent days once again emerged waving their guns. Some people fired fireworks from rooftops. Others drove through the city with their hands on their horns.

1. Understanding Regarding Ceasefire In Gaza Strip
a. Israel shall stop all hostilities on the Gaza Strip land, sea and air including incursions and targeting of individuals. b. All Palestinian factions shall stop all hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel, including rocket attacks, and attacks along the border. c. Opening the crossings and facilitating the movement of people and transfer of goods, and refraining from restricting residents free movement, and targeting residents in border areas and procedures of implementation shall be dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the ceasefire. d. Other matters as maybe requested shall be addressed. 2. Implementation Mechanisms
a. Setting up of the zero hour for the Ceasefire Understanding to enter into effect. b. Egypt shall receive assurances from each party that the party commits to what was agreed upon. c. Each party shall commit itself not to perform any act that would breach this understanding. In case of any observations, Egypt -- as the sponsor of this understand -- shall be informed to follow up.

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Smuggled weapons often fall into the hands of Islamist militants in the Sinai Peninsula, or pass via underground tunnels to the Gaza Strip, the site of fierce fighting over the past week between Hamas militants and Israeli forces.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday there were "many details to work out" before a ceasefire could be reached to end the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. "I am particularly concerned about the spiral of violence at the time of intense efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and Israel," Ban said. Speaking after a meeting with Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi, whose country is trying to forge a truce, he said: "We all know there are many details to work out. But while that happens civilians continue to die."

Air strikes have hit rocket stores, launchpads and suspected Hamas command posts, government buildings and apartment blocks in an eight-day-old assault that has killed 139 Gazans, most of them civilians, including 34 children. Israel says 56 militants have been killed.

A U.N. aid agency says some 10,000 Gazans have sought shelter in U.N.-run schools after the Israeli military dropped leaflets on the territory warning residents of certain areas to evacuate their homes.

For 15-year-old Odaya of Sderot, the rocket attacks on her city hit very close to home, literally, this past Sunday, November 18, when Gaza rocket struck Odaya's neighbor's home. The soft-spoken teenager told Tazpit News Agency, that the rocket attack was "scary" and had left her in shock. "I went into our family's bomb shelter as soon as the Code Red siren went off," she said. "And then as I was standing there, I heard the shriek of the rocket as it flew over our house, followed by a deafening explosion. I thought the rocket had fallen on our home." The rocket, which slammed into the roof of Odaya's neighbors' house, sent pieces of shrapnel and glass everywhere, reaching also Odaya's home. The neighboring family was away at the time of the attack, but for Odaya, the experience was scarring.

Short-term gains from any Egypt-brokered truce, which is rumored to include a halt in attacks on both sides and a potential end to Israel’s Gaza blockade, will eventually be overshadowed by the chronic, unaddressed ills of the long-running conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. “There are no guarantees that [any] cease-fire will last forever,” said Mkhaimar Abusaada, a Gaza-based political analyst.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, in comments posted on his Facebook page on Wednesday, urged the Islamist Hamas administration ruling Gaza to ensure that no one takes the law into their own hands. "Punishing collaborators and especially those involved in the killing of our leaders must only be carried out in accordance with the law and through the legal procedures," Abu Marzouk said.

@ erinmcunningham : No time to assess extent of damage from last night's strikes before being caught up in fresh strikes. #Gaza

@ emilie_baujard : Speechless and worried #gaza #israel #telaviv

@ ahauslohner : We're covered in dust; it's in our mouths, our hair. Series of blasts, central #Gaza city

Israel demands that Hamas be held responsible for making sure the Gaza Strip's other groups uphold the Palestinian end of the deal. In return, Israel will stop the IAF strikes and the assassinations of militants. However, Israel demands that it retain its right to take militarily action in order to thwart nefarious operations against it in Gaza. During the second stage, once the cease-fire is given a trial run of sorts, Israel would be willing to open talks with Egypt on Hamas' demands, especially loosening the blockage on Gaza and opening the border crossings. Israel demands that, at that stage, discussions concerning the smuggling of arms into the Gaza Strip will take place and that Egypt will provide assurances to prevent its taking place.

Damage in gaza city from last nights attacks. 500 metres from our officetwitpic.com/bf1u4j

To ignore the role of Israel's occupation of Gaza is to ignore the fundamental fact needed to frame the latest escalation in reality rather than rhetoric and propaganda. To do otherwise, flagrantly falsifies the reality of the ongoing humanitarian crisis on the ground in Gaza. The reality is complicated; mired in corruption, haunted by division, but is ultimately a product of obscene oppression. So obscene, that many, namely Israel and the US, would rather pretend it simply was not true - not real - but it is.

Press TV reports that its correspondent Akram al-Sattari has been injured in an Israeli airstrike that damaged a hotel hosting international journalists.

@ haaretzcom : Iranian television journalist killed in #IDF bombing of a #Gaza hotel, says Palestinian news agency Ma'an http://t.co/SXxDHrHI

We huddle here in the house away from the windows that might shatter if the bombing gets too close. We're afraid to go out, even for some bread. The bakery is not so close. My husband is taking care of his paralyzed father and can't leave him to go to the bakery. I'm too afraid for him to even try. We're lucky. We have enough food to last maybe a week. We have rice and sugar, cooking oil and lentils and a few vegetables. There is a rising feeling of fear. There is no safe place to hide. We can't leave Gaza to find refuge elsewhere. Before the bombings began, our electricity was already off most of the day, so we got a small generator. We keep two 16-liter containers of gas on hand to refuel it whenever the electricity goes out. The gas station is far from our house, but this usually isn't a problem. Now, though, it is not safe to go out to fill up our containers and there's probably no gas left in the station anyway. We may soon run out of gas. We use a lot of candles. The hospital has called asking for supplies. They're running short of medicines and antibiotics to treat the injured. Four years ago, we were able to get a supply of medicines and hygiene kits into Gaza pretty fast. Who knows when we will be able this time?

Al Jazeera's bureau in Gaza City has been damaged after an airstrike hit the nearby Abu Khadra government building. A residential building in the area was on fire after the strike.

Rhetoric aside, however, nothing seems to have changed in Egypt’s policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mubarak may be in prison and his security chief, Omar Suleiman, may be dead, but the contours of Egypt’s attitude around the Arab-Israeli conflict show no sign of significant change, despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood now holds the reins.

It's difficult to sleep as your country rests on the cusp of war. Waiting to be awoken by the eerie cry of the "red alert" sirens. I can only imagine what this feeling must be like for those on the frontlines in the south of Israel and in the Gaza Strip. Only hours ago, the Israeli cabinet approved the activation of 75,000 reservists soldiers, friends and those who have become my family awaiting the call. For those on the periphery in the western world and across the region battling for their respective sides please do not confound this tragic and frightening situation. Beneath it, all of us, Israelis and Palestinians, are simply people living in fear.

Gaza is not a particularly hard story to cover; it's happening all around you. The biggest problem for journalists is in fact that it is so obviously an unbalanced conflict -- there is no equating Israel with Gaza, Palestinian fighters with the Israeli Army and rockets with missile strikes. But it's precisely that which journalists struggle with. We are taught to be neutral, impartial, balanced. But this is not a balanced conflict and in the pursuit to even things out, some have ended up reporting the wrong story, emphasizing things they would normally not emphasize in the interest of looking balanced.

The United States signalled on Tuesday that a Gaza truce could take days to achieve after Hamas, the Palestinian enclave's ruling Islamist militants, backed away from an assurance that it and Israel would stop exchanging fire within hours. "In the days ahead the United States will work with our partners here in Israel and across the region toward an outcome that bolsters security for the people of Israel, improves conditions for the people of Gaza and moves toward a comprehensive peace for all people of the region," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Jerusalem. Clinton spoke after Hamas said an Egyptian-brokered truce deal that it had expected to be in place by Tuesday night was delayed because Israel has not responded to proposals.

An Israeli strike destroyed houses on the Egyptian side of the border between Egypt and the Gaza strip Monday. A security source said that Israeli F-16 fired missiles at tunnels and houses adjacent to the border.

Hillary Clinton arrives in Israel instagr.am/p/SQ-seFn59e/

— Mike Hayes (@michaelhayes) November 20, 2012

Bombing here usually occurs on two phases. First, a drone fires a rocket, which is sort of a sign for owners to leave. Ten minutes later, an Israeli F-16 comes swooping over and blows up the whole place. This builds some sort of anticipation and anxiety for what's coming. Some people take cover, but interestingly most people go nearby to watch it happen right in front of them. Other journalists and I then went to Gaza City. Since we arrived, we have witnessed the two deadliest days of bombing, I think. It's getting worse. We were here when the al-Dallo family was massacred: Nine members of the family, including six children. We've largely laid low at night when the bombing gets most intense, and spent the day mostly at hospitals or destroyed families' houses.

The head of the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV station says an Israeli airstrike killed two cameramen after they wrapped up an assignment at Gaza's Shifa Hospital, while a Gaza health official says another airstrike killed a third journalist. Al Aqsa footage of Tuesday's strike shows the vehicle going up in flames. The station's head, Mohammed Thouraya, says the car had press markings. The other journalist, who was working for a private radio station was killed later Tuesday when a missile hit his car, the official said. Israel's military had no immediate comment. The strikes came on the seventh day of an Israeli offensive in Gaza. Targeted killings of journalists would be unprecedented. Over the weekend, Israeli airstrikes hit two media centers housing Al Aqsa and another station seen as pro-Hamas.

Artillery fire coming into #Gaza we think from #Israeli positions in the north not the navy this time

lots of artillery coming into #Gaza. Its the first time its been this early in the night. Normally its been early hours of morning

— Paul Danahar (@pdanahar) November 20, 2012

Colleague in Israel on border with Gaza says IDF is shelling northern #Gaza in areas where leaflets dropped earlier.

U.S. State Dept.'s Nuland on Gaza conflict: "We obviously need to see this violence come down."

— Matthew Keys (@TheMatthewKeys) November 20, 2012

U.S. State Dept.'s Nuland on Gaza conflict: Obama has made 3 calls to Egyptian leader Morsi, Secy. Clinton has made a dozen phone calls

— Matthew Keys (@TheMatthewKeys) November 20, 2012

U.S. State Dept.'s Nuland: Secy. Clinton scheduled to meet with Netanyahu tonight, Abbas and Morsi on separate visits tomorrow.

— Matthew Keys (@TheMatthewKeys) November 20, 2012

The risks of a wider conflict -- one that could see Iranian missiles targeting American troops in Afghanistan, Hezbollah rocket and guerrilla attacks into Northern Israel from Lebanon, U.S. warships fighting through minefields to re-open the strait of Hormuz and smoke billowing from wrecked tankers and oil facilities along the Persian Gulf -- are higher because of growing opportunities for miscalculation, according to military and regional experts. For the region's major military powers -- the U.S., Israel, Turkey and Iran -- there is no hotline, no diplomatic link that could help prevent them from groping blindly through an escalating crisis. And once started, a regional conflict would be hard to stop, experts say. Recent war games demonstrated the tendency of Washington and Tehran to completely misread the other's intentions.

This may have been among last few casualties of the conflict. Air strike on Al Aqsa media team 2 dead twitter.com/pdanahar/statu…

Gaza needs to be open to humanitarian aid, and all sorts of products. It's very hard to think about Israel calling what it's doing defending itself when it's occupying Palestinian territory. It's collective punishment. We cannot support punishing an entire population because of the policies and attacks of Hamas. It's illegal.

"They possessed hi-tech equipment and filming equipment to take footage of positions," a security source told Hamas' Aqsa radio. The Hamas radio said the men, who were suspected of working for Israel, were shot. It did not elaborate. Gunmen chained the body of one of the alleged collaborators to a motorcycle and dragged it throughout the main streets of Gaza City.

For the United States, as for other countries hoping to promote a two-state solution to this century-old conflict, a more radicalized West Bank with a discredited Palestinian Authority would mean greater insecurity for Israel and increased opportunity for anti-Western forces to take root in a region where Islamism is on the rise. Since Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2006, threw the Fatah-controlled authority out of Gaza a year later, Mr. Abbas has not set foot there. Yet he will be asking the world to recognize the two increasingly distinct entities as a unified state. Manar Wadi, who works in an office in Ramallah, put the issue this way: “What is happening in Gaza makes the Palestinian Authority left behind and isolated. Now we see the other face of Hamas, and its popularity is rising. It makes us feel that the Palestinian Authority doesn’t offer a path to the future.”

Evacuation leaflets causing panic as people think an #Israeli invasion on #Gaza imminent yfrog.com/h8tm7zznj

Mohammed Morsi said on Tuesday that "Israeli aggression" against Gaza would end later in the day, the Egyptian state news agency MENA reported. "President Mohamed Morsi announced that the farce of Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip will end on Tuesday," MENA said, quoting public remarks made by the country's head of state after the funeral of his sister. "The efforts to conclude a truce between the Palestinian and Israeli sides will produce positive results in the next few hours," he was quoted as saying.

On 17 November 2012 at 22:16, the Israeli Defense Forces tweeted from their official Twitter account (@IDFSpokesperson) a link to a video hosted on their official YouTube channel, featuring an animated film that depicts militants firing rockets from a school clearly marked with the UNRWA insignia. UNRWA is concerned about the creation and use of footage that wrongly suggests that UNRWA is allowing its premises to be used for terrorist activities in the current conflict and the unauthorised use of its logo in computer-generated material. In a situation of conflict these allegations have potentially grave consequences. UNRWA takes with utmost seriousness the neutrality of its installations, particularly in times of heightened violence.

President Obama and Bibi Netanyahu are on the same page when it comes to the justification for Israel's bombardment of Gaza. Netanyahu : "No country in the world would agree to a situation in which its population lives under a constant missile threat." Obama: "There's no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders." It's true that if, say, Canada were lobbing missiles into the US, the US wouldn't tolerate it. But here's another thing the US wouldn't tolerate: If Canada imposed a crippling economic blockade, denying America the import of essential goods and hugely restricting American exports. That would be taken as an act of war, and America would if necessary respond with force--by, perhaps, lobbing missiles into Canada.

"We think it's vitally important that this council, by its action, or non-action, is reinforcing the prospects for an agreed cessation" of hostilities, said Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN. "That's got to be agreed between the parties to be meaningful or sustainable," Rice said. "That is our principle objective in these discussions."

The National Lawyers Guild calls for an immediate halt to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and demands that the U.S. government immediately cease all aid to Israel. The NLG calls for further action by the U.N. Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council to protect the civilian population of Gaza, to oppose the bombardment, and to oppose any further escalation.

Then there was this from the Al Qassam Brigades in Gaza, "#Israeli air force shelling house of Al Askari's family". The snappy rejoinder from the Israel Defense Forces: "#Gaza terrorists targeted Ashdod again." ... Israel and the Hamas leadership of the Gaza Strip are in a shooting war in which homes and government offices have been destroyed and more than 60 people have been killed, the vast majority of them Palestinians. It's very serious, but like two high school girls with a romantic interest in the same skinny hipster in the senior class, Israel and Hamas are sending bitchy taunts to each other over Twitter.

@ netanyahu : I would like to thank all the citizens of #Israel and all over the #world who are taking part in the national information effort

@ netanyahu : The fact that you are focusing on rebutting the entire falsehood industry.

@ netanyahu : and reaching the audiences that you are getting to is a significant bonus for the State of Israel

The most striking and unprecedented social media moment of the past couple of days has not been the proliferation of hashtags, official and unofficial, or even the revelation that the IDF ison Pinterest. It was a ten-second clip the IDF posted to its YouTube page of the targeted assassination of Ahmed Jabari, the top Hamas military commander. You watch in black-and-white as a car, highlighted by a yellow circle, suddenly blows up. To call it jarring is an understatement. “The logic was to allow direct access to video clips, usually taken from the air or from some intelligence cameras from the ground,” Lebovich explained. “They seem authentic and [viewers] understand this is not something we’re directing.”

My mom is the matriarch of our family. She is the family's central bank and the great mother and a grandmother you would want for your own kids. While Israel was waging its war on the civilians in Gaza, my mother Fatema was busy keeping her 30 grandchildren entertained. They have been losing power often -- more often than they are used to -- due to constant shelling and interference by the Israeli army. "Tonight, I will wear an extra pair of pants, to be ready. In case anything happens to us at night, I will be decent as I am being transported to a local hospital or morgue. I want to look good even if I have left this earth." As I felt a chill up my spine, she went on to tell me about our next door neighbor Essam; the 19-year old was bombed on his motorcycle near our Beit Lahia home. While the Israeli officials are too busy "sending Gaza to the Middle Ages," my own family and so many others are trying to stay alive and sane.

“It’s an amazing feeling when we make an interception,” Abu said on Monday. “We set up this battery in only 24 hours. ... Three days ago, Abu was pursuing his university studies, when he was called back by the air force to command the new battery, the fifth of its kind deployed to defend the lives of civilians from Palestinian terrorists’ rockets.

It says that 67 rockets were fired at Israel on Monday, while 42 others were intercepted by its "Iron Dome" missile interception system.

The officials stressed an evacuation remains an extremely remote possibility and the Obama administration is not currently planning for one. Americans who wish to leave the region now are able to do so using commercial airlines.

From the moment the bombing started I cursed the newly built shopping mall that towers over our house. Not only did it break all of Gaza’s lax zoning laws, but its owner was known to be a Hamas sympathizer: each day I have been afraid that it could be one of Israel’s bombing targets. Israel’s target list will be inspected and debated in the aftermath of this operation; at present it seems to be a mixture of rocket-launching sites, pre-identified militants, weapons caches, and then there are the “symbolic” targets. Each of which carries a different strategic calculation for Israel, but from where we sit, the symbolic targeting of government buildings is as baffling as the decision to fight homemade rockets with bombs dropped from F-16s. And all of these risk civilian casualties, the “collateral damage” that rolls much too easily off too many tongues.

In the end, there are only three comparative equivalences that matter. First, there are people on both sides who believe that the solution to this conflict is violence and dehumanization that can wear the other side out or make it act in ways that look bad. Second, there are many more people on both sides whose daily lives are disrupted, even destroyed, by the first group of people. And third, everyone it takes on each side of the conflict to stop it soon, rather than justify it, is what the rest of us must strive to see happen.

"If God is willing, the American people will wake up and realize that it will benefit them to support the 350 million Arabs, not Israel, to be with the 1.5 billion Muslims and not Netanyahu's gangs ... Don't reverse the picture. The killer should offer this peace, not the victim."

A senior Egyptian official tells Haaretz: "We are very close to a cease-fire. What is needed is more flexibility on the Israeli side, tomorrow will be a critical day in the talks."

RAMALLAH -- Vandals set fire to the entrance of a West Bank mosque on Monday, damaging the door, in an attack that villagers blamed on Jewish settlers. Residents of the Palestinian village of Orif, near the city of Nablus, said a group of settlers from a nearby settlement came to the mosque before dawn, poured gasoline on an old carpet near the mosque's door, and set it ablaze. "The settlers tried to break into the mosque, but it was locked," Orif resident Issam al-Safadi told Reuters. "So they settled with burning the old carpet and the door."

Although Barack Obama was on a visit to Burma on Monday, he could have made time if needed to talk with leaders in Israel, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar but opted against. Instead, according to the White House national security spokesman Ben Rhodes, he left it to secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the national security adviser Tom Donilon who are both travelling with him, to make the calls. The White House approach appears to be that Obama could only play a limited role in the confrontation, having next to no influence over Hamas and poor relations with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

The European Union strongly condemns the rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip which Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza must cease immediately. There can be no justification for the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians. Israel has the right to protect its population from these kinds of attacks; in doing so it must act proportionately and ensure the protection of civilians at all times.

"Those who associate Islam with terrorism close their eyes in the face of mass killing of Muslims, turn their heads from the massacre of children in Gaza," Erdogan told a conference of the Eurasian Islamic Council in Istanbul. "For this reason, I say that Israel is a terrorist state, and its acts are terrorist acts."

I didn’t come back to Jerusalem to be in a war. I didn’t come to Jerusalem to write about Middle East politics either. I came because I needed to take some time away to write my book about the Supreme Court (thank you, it’s going fine) and because my parents live here in Israel and we wanted to spend a year with them. I came because we desperately wanted to give our sons -- who are seven and nine -- a year in which their world became bigger and more complicated, since everything in their lives up until now had been measured out in equal units of comfort and Lego. I don’t really want to write a heartbreaking account of the sirens in Jerusalem Friday night, or the touching and innocent commentary offered up by our boys as they told us they were scared and wanted to go home. I am just not sure how such accounts help us move forward.

"I know he'd hate me for saying that but we need a person of enormous prestige and influence to have these parties sit down together as an honest broker," said McCain. "The United States of America has got to push as hard as we can to resolve this Israeli-Palestinian issue."

Analysts say the Hamas retaliation may be explained in part by long-standing fissures within the Hamas leadership that have widened as a result of the Arab Spring. Squabbles within the movement, they say, have drowned out pragmatic voices.

At around 02:00 (00:00 GMT) on Sunday, the BBC's Jon Donnison in Gaza City reported hearing more than a dozen shells, apparently fired from Israeli war ships - a new development in Israel's operation Pillar of Defence. Air strikes were also heard across Gaza City.

The WHO, quoting Health Ministry officials in Gaza, said 382 people have been injured - 245 adults and 137 children. "Many of those injured have been admitted to hospitals with severe burns, injuries from collapsing buildings and head injuries," the WHO said in a statement issued in Geneva. Health authorities have declared an emergency situation in all hospitals to cope with patients, it said. "Before the hostilities began, health facilities were severely over stretched mainly as a result of the siege of Gaza," the WHO said. Israel maintains a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip with the help of neighbouring Egypt. The Gaza Ministry of Health's supplies of many life-saving drugs and disposable equipment were at "zero stock", it said.

Speakers on a podium condemned the British government after Foreign Secretary William Hague said the Hamas regime running the Gaza Strip bore "principal responsibility" for the escalation of violence. PSC director Sarah Colborne said demonstrators wanted to show their opposition to the Foreign Office's standpoint. "We are insisting that the British government uphold international law and human rights and tells Israel to end its war now," she said.

In the last 48 hours, my mother and I have kept vigil by my siblings’ side — my twin, an adolescent brother and a sister within earshot of her high school valediction. We sit together, my mother and I, in an inner room without a view, watching the furrowed brows of my brother and two sisters straining to sleep.

The White House says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Obama Friday to provide an update on the situation. Netanyahu expressed appreciation to Obama and the American people for U.S. investment in the Iron Dome rocket and mortar defense system, which has been used to defend Israel against rocket attacks from Gaza, saving many Israeli lives, the White House said. Obama reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to self-defense and discussed possible ways to scale back the conflict, the White House said. It did not offer specifics. Separately, Obama called Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi on Friday and praised Egypt's efforts to ease tensions in the region, the White House said. Obama expressed hope that Egypt's efforts would be successful, officials said.

So far, six of 28 Palestinians killed in Israel's offensive this week have been children, ranging in age from just under 1 to 14 years, according to Gaza health officials. Most were killed by shrapnel while in or near their homes. In Israel, 12 children were hurt in rocket attacks this week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Hamas of using Gaza's civilians, particularly children, as human shields by launching rockets from crowded residential areas. Gazans argue that Israel is unleashing massive airstrikes on their territory without regard for civilians. They say that even Israel's self-described surgical strikes on militant targets put civilians at grave risk in Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated places.

The executed man, identified as Ashraf Ouaida, had a poster hung around his neck accusing him of cooperating with the Israelis in the killing of 15 Palestinian leaders.

Egyptians on Friday marched in the country's two largest cities, Cairo and Alexandria, many waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans against Israel. In Cairo's Tahrir Square, a few hundred protesters burned an Israeli flag. The demonstrations were called by Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group.

Hamas, the Islamist group that governs Gaza, launched a Qassam rocket toward Jerusalem. The Israeli military confirmed a missile strike outside the ancient Jewish capital; there was no details of the precise location or whether anyone was injured.

"We support the calls of the Secretary-General for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and his demand that both sides should do everything to avoid further escalation and must respect their obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure the protection of civilians at all times."

S.Res.599 expresses “vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders, and recognizing and strongly supporting its right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against acts of terrorism.” The strikes by Israel on Gaza have set off protests in Egypt, as well as warnings of escalating violence.

The IDF Blog now has atrocious gamification badges with points and rewards for sharing the content to social media. For example, if you visit the site 10 times, you get the "Consistent" badge. If you search the blog multiple times, you're promoted to "Research Officer." Yes, Israel has gamified war. This is absolutely horrendous.

A picture by @lydiadeleeuw of a 13-year-old girl injured in an Israeli attack on #Gaza earlier today. #GazaUnderAttack twitter.com/jncatron/statu…

Tel Aviv tonight. That's all. twitter.com/avitalrachel/s…