McClatchy: Medical officials in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said Monday that Israeli attacks had killed 523 Palestinians, including 111 children. Israel has barred international news media from Gaza since the operation began, and the numbers couldn't be verified... 'Usually you have people trying to flee the area of conflict,' said John Ging, the head of the United Nations refugee agency in the Gaza Strip. 'But they don't have this choice in Gaza because they are trapped in a very, very densely populated area.'
The Toronto Star: Saudi Arabia said the international community should do more to stop Israeli 'barbarity' in its military offensive. 'To say that Israel barbarity is self-defense is to close one's eyes to the history of Israeli occupation and settlement of Palestinian territories, practices of closure and terror, and the massive imbalance in power between the two sides,' a cabinet statement said.
Sunday 4 January in Istanbul, Paris, Rabat (Morocco), Beirut, Athens Thessaloniki, Oslo, Washington DC, Montreal, Karbala (Iraq), Sydney, and Melbourne.
Paul Woodward, War in Context: Wars against ideas always fail. The only things that bombs and bullets can destroy are human lives and property... Israel's drive to annihilate its enemies is borne out of a seemingly irrepressible arrogance. Yet ultimately nothing gets destroyed -- it merely goes through a process of transformation... Israel presents an existential threat to Hamas -- not the other way around. It's plain for the world to see. The difference between Israel and Hamas is that Hamas does not fear its annihilation... The movement is much more durable than its constituent parts.
