RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - A number of armed attacks have taken place on Israel’s borders with Palestinian territories in the last six days as Arab public anger over the death and destruction wrought on Gaza spills over from massive street demonstrations. Israeli security officials have voiced concern that the Gaza violence could affect Israel’s borders and that Israeli settlers and soldiers in the Palestinian West Bank could be targeted by armed Palestinians. Read more about Anger begins to knock at Israel's borders 

I learned about the horrors of economic warfare during repeated visits to Iraq, when civilians suffered under economic sanctions, when pediatric wards in hospitals were like death rows for infants and hundreds of thousands of children were punished to death. But I was a shamefully slow learner. In 1991, after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and before the United States began bombing Iraq, I was part of the Gulf Peace Team, an assembly of international peace activists camped on the Iraq side of the border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Kathy Kelly comments for EI. Read more about Cease fire, cease siege 

Israel rejected outright the weak UN Security Council’s “call” for “an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire.” What the Arab foreign ministers hailed as a triumph for their mission to New York was no more than a fig leaf to cover their failure before their increasingly angry and restive peoples who are ever more boldly denouncing Arab leaders’ inaction or complicity as Israel butchers Palestinians in Gaza. Hasan Abu Nimah comments. Read more about Resolution 1860: fig leaf to Arab failure 

JERUSALEM (IRIN) - The Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) is concerned that waste water lagoons in the northern Gaza Strip could collapse due to the current fighting between Israel and Hamas. “With Israel’s latest bombardment, there is a real risk that earth retention walls of a number of wastewater lagoons will break, releasing an estimated three million cubic meters of wastewater into the surrounding communities,” said Shaddad Attili, head of the PWA, in a statement on 12 January. Read more about Gaza sewage lagoons could collapse  

Concerns about Israel’s use of non-conventional and experimental weapons in the Gaza Strip are growing, with evasive comments from spokesmen and reluctance to allow independent journalists inside the tiny enclave only fueling speculation. The most prominent controversy is over the use of shells containing white phosphorus, which causes horrific burns when it comes into contact with skin. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Is Gaza a testing ground for experimental weapons? 

As Israel rejected the terms of the proposed United Nations ceasefire at the weekend, Israeli military analysts were speculating on the nature of the next stage of the attack on Gaza, or the “third phase” of the fighting as it is being referred to. Having struck thousands of targets from the air in the first phase, followed by a ground invasion that saw troops push into much of Gaza, a third phase would involve a significant expansion of these operations. Jonathan Cook analyzes. Read more about Blueprint for Gaza attack was long planned 

RAFAH, EGYPT (IRIN) - With Israel’s two-week military offensive in Gaza showing no signs of abating, patience is running thin among those waiting to get into the Strip from the Egyptian border town of Rafah, the Palestinians’ only access to the outside world that is not controlled by Israel. Every day, local and foreign doctors, nurses, truck drivers and journalists, among others, wait on the Egyptian side of the border for the opportunity to enter Gaza during the daily three-hour ceasefire. Read more about Tensions running high on the Egypt-Gaza border