CAIRO (IPS) - As the Palestinian death toll approaches 400, much of popular anger throughout the Arab world has been directed at Egypt — seen by many as complicit in the Israeli campaign. “Israel would not have hit Gaza like this without a green light from Egypt,” Hamdi Hassan, MP for the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition movement, told IPS. “The Egyptian government allowed this assault on Gaza in hopes of finishing off Hamas.” Read more about Egypt seen as complicit in Gaza assault 

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - In Gaza’s main hospital, the director’s office is under virtual siege, according to an IRIN journalist in Gaza. Relatives of the injured are desperate to get their kin transferred to Egypt for emergency treatment. There is a fear here that the already overstretched healthcare system will collapse if Israel mounts a ground offensive into the tiny coastal strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians. Read more about "If there is an Israeli invasion hospitals will collapse" 

No one can say with certainty what Israel’s new aggression will unleash, but one can point to some likely outcomes. The attack on Gaza will not destroy Hamas, and even if Israel kills every person who ever supported Hamas, the attack will not end resistance. On the contrary, resistance will be strengthened throughout the region, undermining the notion that resistance is outdated or impossible and that the only remaining “strategic choice” for the Arabs is negotiation from a position of weakness. The Gaza attack will weaken and discredit even further the so-called “moderates” who did their best to extinguish any form of resistance and bet heavily on the failed peace process and its sponsors. Hasan Abu Nimah comments. Read more about New birth pangs for the Middle East 

CAIRO (IPS) - Formally, the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” appears set to continue, in line with the last United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution. But the chances of finding a resolution are virtually nil in light of Israel’s new campaign against the Gaza Strip. “Even before Israel’s latest bombardment of Gaza, the so-called peace process was dead,” Magdi Hussein, secretary-general of Egypt’s Islamist-leaning Labor Party (officially frozen since 2000), told IPS. On Saturday, 27 December, Israel began a series of punishing air strikes throughout the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, whose interior is controlled by Hamas. Read more about "Peace process" blown to bits 

As the death toll in Gaza rises by the hour, and the few civic buildings still left are collapsing under the combined firepower of the Israeli air force, with its up-to-the-minute bombers and destructive armaments, we are again facing an incredible political phenomenon — the foretold disaster which surprises all political leaders as if they, unlike the rest of us, never see a newspaper or watch the television news channels. Haim Bresheeth comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Where peace is a problem 

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - Gaza’s main hospital, al-Shifa, is struggling to cope with the influx of people injured in the Israeli air strikes which started on 27 December, according to medical sources. Staff and patients are also fearful Israel might target it, as the leaders of Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the enclave, have held press conferences there. The hospital has already moved some medical facilities below ground. Read more about Gaza's main hospital struggling to cope 

Of the three politicians who announced the military assault on Gaza to the world on Saturday, perhaps only the outgoing Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has little to lose — or gain — from its outcome. Flanking the Israeli prime minister were two of the main contenders for his job: Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and the new leader of Olmert’s centrist party, Kadima, and Ehud Barak, the defense minister and leader of the left-wing Labor Party. The attack on Gaza may make or break this pair’s political fortunes as they jostle for position against Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing party, Likud, before a general election little more than a month away. Jonathan Cook analyzes. Read more about Israeli electioneering with bombs 

It does Israelis no more good to control Palestinian land, exploit its resources, and inflict misery on its people than it did the US any good to do the same to Iraqis. Most of us know that the crimes our country committed in Iraq were detrimental to our future, so why would we support the Israeli government when it engages in the same self-destructive behavior. My question to Israel’s “friends” in US Congress would be, “is that what friends are for?” Titus North comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Falling into the moral abyss 

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - After an emergency closed-door session Sunday night, the 15-member Security Council issued a politically bland statement expressing “serious concern” over the devastating Israeli air strikes on Gaza and calling for an “immediate halt to all violence.” The statement was predictable because the United States, a traditionally loyal Israeli ally, would never agree to anything smacking of a “censure” or “condemnation” of Israel — even as the death toll rose to more than 300 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Read more about Only mild Security Council criticism for Israeli attacks 

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - As a result of a major Israeli offensive on 27 December against the Gaza Strip a dire humanitarian situation looms, according to aid officials. Gaza had been teetering on the edge of such a crisis even before the Israeli offensive: humanitarian access to Gaza has been severely restricted by Israel since early November. Now infrastructure in several areas has been destroyed, leaving residents without electricity and water. Read more about Gaza without electricity, water