January 23rd

As Obama Visits State Dept., Clinton Announces Two Special Envoys ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Karen Deyoung, Glenn Kessler - January 23, 2009 - 1:00am President Obama traveled to the State Department yesterday afternoon for a visit that was as rich in symbolism as in substance, underscoring his pledge to give top priority to diplomacy as he outlined an activist policy in the Middle East and warned that "difficult days lie ahead" in Afghanistan. » Read more

No Home to Return to in Gaza ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Griff Witte - January 23, 2009 - 1:00am When members of the Sultan family ran from their home as an Israeli tank shelled its northern wall, there was no time to shut the front door. There was also no need. The house, which family patriarch Samir al-Sultan began building at the age of 15, was all but destroyed as Israeli forces advanced into the Gaza Strip in early January, turning the house's contents into a mangled mess of glass and mortar. With no home to return to and no prospects for rebuilding, the Sultans on Thursday were among the thousands of Palestinians in Gaza searching for somewhere to go. » Read more

January 22nd

The One-State Solution ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Muammar Qaddafi - (Opinion) January 21, 2009 - 1:00am THE shocking level of the last wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, which ended with this weekend’s cease-fire, reminds us why a final resolution to the so-called Middle East crisis is so important. It is vital not just to break this cycle of destruction and injustice, but also to deny the religious extremists in the region who feed on the conflict an excuse to advance their own causes. » Read more

Israeli envoy in Egypt to discuss lasting Gaza truce ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Agence France Presse (AFP) January 22, 2009 - 1:00am Israeli envoy Amos Gilad was in Cairo on Thursday for Egyptian-mediated talks on clinching a lasting truce with Hamas expected to focus on stemming arms smuggling across the porous Gaza-Egypt border. Gilad arrived "for a short visit to meet with senior officials to discuss consolidating the ceasefire in Gaza," Egypt's state MENA news agency said. Egypt invited Hamas to Cairo for separate talks on Thursday on shoring up the fragile ceasefire that took effect on January 18, but the Islamists will only send a delegation to Cairo on Sunday, the foreign ministry said. » Read more

Outcry Erupts Over Reports That Israel Used Phosphorus Arms on Gazans ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times by Ethan Bronner - January 21, 2009 - 1:00am In early January, a week into Israel’s war in Gaza, the home of Sabah Abu Halima was hit by an Israeli shell. Ms. Abu Halima, the matriarch of a farming family in the northern Gaza area of Beit Lahiya, was caught in an inferno that burned her husband and four of their nine children to death. » Read more

After Gaza war, Israel sees Hamas prisoner swap ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters by Dan Williams - January 22, 2009 - 1:00am After pummeling Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel now hopes to push through a prisoner swap to retrieve a soldier held by the Palestinians since 2006, Israeli officials said on Thursday. They said Israel was conditioning any lifting of its Gaza blockade on immediate progress in Egyptian efforts to free Gilad Shalit, and would be willing to relax its objections to a list of Palestinian prisoners which Hamas wants released in exchange. » Read more

Gaza ruins pose questions for Hamas ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC World News by Quil Lawrence - January 21, 2009 - 1:00am Standing on a newly formed hillside of rubble in the destroyed Jabaliya refugee camp, five young men all claim to be resistance fighters. "All of Gaza are mujahideen," they said. But when asked which of them had actually fired a gun in the three week-long battle with Israel, none gave a convincing answer. And as armed Hamas policemen return to Gaza's street-corners and traffic-lights, many in Gaza are wondering where they were when it came to fighting the Israeli Army. Hamas still has enough power and influence here that few will criticise the Islamist movement openly. » Read more

Obama to pick George Mitchell as his Mideast envoy ATFP World Press Roundup Article from International Herald Tribune by Mark Lander - January 22, 2009 - 1:00am President Barack Obama moved swiftly to engage on the Middle East, calling Israeli and Arab leaders on his first morning in office and preparing to appoint a seasoned peace negotiator and former senator, George Mitchell, as his special emissary to the region. Obama did not announce any new initiatives Wednesday, although he promised deeper U.S. involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than was evident during the Bush administration, which steered clear of the peace process in its early days. » Read more

Control Of Gaza Subject Of Debate ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Craig Whitlock - January 21, 2009 - 1:00am As Palestinians begin thinking about how to rebuild the bombarded Gaza Strip, the biggest hurdle quickly became apparent: Who will be in charge? European countries, oil-rich Arab kingdoms and the United Nations have all pledged money or aid since Israel declared a cease-fire Sunday in the military offensive it launched Dec. 27. But none of the donors wants to deal with Hamas, the Islamist movement that still controls Gaza but is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the European Union and the United States. » Read more

As Constraints on Gaza Ease, New Reports of Misery ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post by Jonathan Finer, Craig Whitlock - January 22, 2009 - 1:00am Khaled Abed Rabbo returned Wednesday to what was left of his five-story home in a village that bears his family's name, and spoke softly of his three young daughters. Sowad, 7, and Amal, 2, died in a hail of Israeli gunfire during what was supposed to be a cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid in the early days of the conflict, he said. His middle daughter, Samar, is now paralyzed with bullet wounds. » Read more