Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion though Egypt saw “some indications” of a truce ahead.

Militant rocket fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning with three rockets fired at the nearby coastal city of Ashkelon, the Israeli army said.

“As of now we have struck more than 1,000 targets, so Hamas should do the math over whether it is or isn’t worth it to cease fire,” Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, over Twitter.

“If there is quiet in the South and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel’s citizens nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack.”

Forty-eight Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 13 children, have been killed in Israel’s raids, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens.

Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the commander of the Hamas Islamist group that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state. Israel’s declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has plagued Israeli border towns for years.

Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. A Gaza City media building was hit, witnesses said, wounding 6 journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain’s Sky News.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop “transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity”.

Two other predawn attacks on houses in the Jabalya refugee camp killed two children and wounded 13 other people, medical officials said.

These attacks followed a defiant statement by Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida, who told a news conference: “This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning.”

The masked gunman dressed in military fatigues insisted that despite Israel’s blows Hamas “is still strong enough to destroy the enemy”.

An Israeli attack on Saturday destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.

Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant’s family understood as a warning to flee, and thus their lives were spared, witnesses said.

Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Among those killed in air strikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding motorcycles, and several civilians including a 30-year-old woman.

ISRAELI SCHOOLS SHUT

Israel said it would keep schools in its south shut on Sunday as a precaution to avoid casualties from rocket strikes reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the past few days.

Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile interceptor system destroyed in mid-air a rocket fired by Gaza militants at Tel Aviv on Saturday, where volleyball games on the beach front came to an abrupt halt as air-raid sirens sounded.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it had fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Israel’s operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel’s right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of calls from world leaders to seek an end to the violence.

British Prime Minister David Cameron “expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides,” in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.

London was “putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate,” the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu “to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end.”

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through “de-escalation” and diplomacy, but also believes Israel has a right to self-defense.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that “there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees.”

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying “there is hope,” but it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

In Jerusalem, an Israeli official declined to comment on the negotiations. Military commanders said Israel was prepared to fight on to achieve a goal of halting rocket fire from Gaza, which has plagued Israeli towns since late 2000, when failed peace talks led to the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

POSSIBLE GROUND OFFENSIVE

Israel, with tanks and artillery positioned along the frontier, said it was still weighing a ground offensive.

Israeli cabinet ministers decided on Friday to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000 and around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: “Definitely.”

“We have a plan. … It will take time. We need to have patience. It won’t be a day or two,” he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel’s maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Douglas Hamilton)

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So, Here’s That ‘Big Bang Theory’ Flashmob You Wanted

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

RELATED: Beating Novak Djokovic: Never Forget Three-Fingered Steve

Psychologist Richard Wiseman has an interactive game for you to let you know you’re just predictable. To be fair, a couple of us tried it out and were not as predictable as Wiseman thought we were going to be. But without further ado, here it is (have some screen cleaner ready):

RELATED: A ‘Mad Men’ Rickroll and the Man That Destroys Carnival Games

RELATED: It’s Sort of Fun Watching Pippa Middleton Squirm

We too are very excited for the Disney installments of Star Wars. New movies, Ewoks, whatever count us in. We’re just not this excited: 

RELATED: A Video to Restore Our Faith in Humanity and a Glacier Tsunami

RELATED: Myspace Hopes Its Sexy New Video will Bring You Back

If you don’t know, The Big Bang Theory is basically a show about a bunch of really smart, really nerdy dorks. Now when it comes to the actual cast of The Big Bang Theory, we’re only pretty sure (and happy to be proven wrong) only one of those things apply:

And finally, do you have $ 37? If so, would you mind donating it to The Atlantic Wire robot fish aquarium fund? We promise, it’s totally a great cause. Thanks in advance!

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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“Simpsons” actor Hank Azaria sues Craig Bierko over character right

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Hank Azaria, who provides the voices for a host of characters on “The Simpsons,” including Moe Szyslak and Chief Wiggum, is suing over the rights to one of his characters.

Azaria and his How to Pictures, Inc. filed suit Wednesday against “Leap Year” actor Craig Bierko in U.S. District Court in Central California on Wednesday, saying that Bierko is jeopardizing a potential movie deal by falsely laying claim to a voice that Azaria claims he created nearly 30 years ago.

Don’t worry, though; Springfield’s favorite curmudgeonly bartender and inept police chief won’t be affected.

According to the suit, Azaria created a voice for a “a colorful baseball announcer who speaks with peculiar speech inflections” in 1983 or beforehand, and introduced the voice to Bierko after meeting him in 1990.

In 2010, Azaria used the voice in a Funny or Die skit in which he played a sportscaster named Jim Brockmire, which employed the voice in question. (The suit also notes that the Brockmire character employed other attributes, such as a plaid jacket and a back story about his wife abandoning him.)

The video became a hit, the lawsuit says – so much so that Azaria was able “to entertain discussions to develop a feature-length motion picture based upon the Jim Brockmire Character who uses the Azaria Voice.”

It also drew the attention of Bierko, who subsequently contacted Azaria and claimed to have created the voice either independently or in collaboration with Azaria, the suit says. (The complaint says that Bierko never made clear which it was, and that Azaria denies the claim in either case.)

The suit claims that Bierko’s claim to ownership on the voice “has created a cloud over the rightful ownership of the Azaria Voice (which is an integral part of the Jim Brockmire Character) such that Plaintiffs’ ability to develop a feature length motion picture based upon the Jim Brockmire Character is being significantly impeded.”

A representative for Bierko has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.

Azaria is seeking a declaration that the sportscaster voice alone isn’t copyrightable, but that the Brockmire character is, plus a declaration that Bierko as no claim to the voice. (He also wants Bierko blocked from laying claim to the voice.)

The suit also asks for attorney’s fees and court costs.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

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Questions of Blame Linger 34 Years After Jonestown

From the age of 13, Leslie Wagner Wilson had been indoctrinated in the California-based Peoples Temple, led by the charismatic Jim Jones, whose mission was to foster racial harmony and help the poor.

But on Nov. 18, 1978, she and a handful of church members fought their way through thick jungle in the South American country of Guyana, escaping a utopian society gone wrong where followers were starved, beaten and held prisoner in the Jonestown compound.

She walked 30 miles to safety with her 3-year-old son, Jakari, strapped to her back and a smaller group of defectors. But just hours later, the mother, sister and brother and husband she left behind were dead.

“I was so scared,” said Wagner, now 55. “We exchanged phone numbers in case we died. I was prepared to die. I never thought I would see my 21st birthday.”

Today, on the 34th anniversary, Wilson said it’s important to remember the California-based Peoples Temple Jonestown massacre, especially the survivors who have wrestled with their consciences for decades.

PHOTOS: Jonestown Massacre Anniversary

Nine members of her family were among the 918 Americans who died that day, 909 of them ordered by Jones to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in the largest ritual suicide in history.

Her husband, Joe Wilson, was one of Jones’ top lieutenants who helped assassinate congressman Leo Ryan and his press crew when they tried to free church members who were being held against their will.

After arriving back in the United States, Wilson said she “went through hell” — three failed marriages, drug use and suicidal thoughts she describes in her 2009 book, “Slavery of Faith.”

“I was like Humpty Dumpty, but you couldn’t put me back together again,” she said.

Survivors, many of them African-American like Wilson, say they felt guilt and shame and faced the most agonizing question surrounding the nation’s single largest loss of life until 9/11: Was it suicide or murder?

Full Coverage: Jonestown Massacre

In the now-famous “death tape,” supporters clapped and babies cried as Jones instructed families to kill the elderly first, then the youngest in protest against capitalism and racism. Mothers poisoned 246 children before taking their own lives.

“We really can’t understand the Peoples Temple without looking at the historical time period when it arose,” said Rebecca Moore, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University.

“With the liberation movements of the ’60s and ’70s, the collapse of the black-power movement, the Peoples Temple was the main institution in the San Francisco Bay area that promoted a message of integration and racial equality.”

Moore lost her two sisters and her nephew, the son of Jim Jones. “They were hardcore believers,” she said of her siblings.

Jim Jones, who was white, came from a “wrong side of the tracks,” poor background in Indiana where in the 1950s he became known as a charismatic preacher with an affinity for African-Americans.

“A number of survivors, including those who defected, believe to this day he had paranormal abilities,” said Moore, who met him years later. “He could heal them and read their minds.”

In the 1960s, Jones moved to San Francisco, where at the height of the Peoples Temple there were about 5,000 members.

WATCH: A Look Back at Jonestown Massacre

“They wanted my parents to join,” she said. “Like most outsiders, we didn’t have any idea what was happening outside closed doors.”

Jones ingratiated himself with celebrities and politicians, mobilizing voters to help elect Mayor George Moscone in 1975 and becoming chairman of the city’s housing authority.

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Israel, Egypt talk Gaza ceasefire as strikes widen

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli envoy held talks with Egyptian officials Sunday on a ceasefire in his country's offensive on Gaza as Israel widened the range of its targets, striking more than a dozen homes of Hamas militants and two media officials. Seven civilians were killed, including five children, in the conflict's highest one-day civilian toll yet, according to security officials and witnesses.

Upon arrival at Cairo's international airport, the Israeli official was whisked away directly from the tarmac and taken to talks with Egyptian authorities, Egyptian security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press. They did not identify the Israeli official.

Egypt has been leading international efforts to broker a truce since Israel launched its offensive five days earlier aimed at stopping Gaza rocket attacks. But Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers remain far apart on any terms.

Hamas is linking a truce deal to a complete lifting of the border blockade on Gaza imposed since Islamists seized the territory by force. Hamas also seeks Israeli guarantees to halt targeted killings of its leaders and military commanders. Israeli officials reject such demands. They say they are not interested in a "timeout," and want firm guarantees that the rocket fire will finally end. Past ceasefires have been short lived.

As the offensive moved forward, Israel found itself at a crossroads — on the cusp of launching a ground offensive into Gaza to strike an even tougher blow against Hamas, or pursuing Egyptian-led truce efforts.

"The Israeli military is prepared to significantly expand the operation," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

At the same time, Gaza militants continued their barrage of rocket fire, firing more than two dozen at Israel on Sunday, including a longer-distance projectile that targeted Tel Aviv for a fourth straight day. One rocket damaged a home in the southern city of Ashkelon, punching a hole in the ceiling. Israel's "Iron Dome" rocket-defense system shot down seven rockets, including the one aimed at Tel Aviv, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said. Eight Israelis were wounded by shrapnel Sunday, one of them moderately.

Expanding targets to strike the homes of suspected commanders appeared to mark a new and risky phase of the operation, given the likelihood of civilian casualties in the densely populated territory of 1.5 million Palestinians.

New strikes on Sunday leveled homes in Gaza, burying residents under the rubble as rescuers frantically dug for survivors. In all, 57 Palestinians have been killed, including 24 civilians, and more than 400 civilians have been wounded, medics say.

Israel launched the operation last Wednesday by assassinating Hamas' military chief and carrying out dozens of airstrikes on rocket launchers and weapons storage sites in response to mounting rocket attacks. Over the weekend, the operation began to target Hamas government installations as well, including the offices of its prime minister.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties, saying the group uses residential areas for cover and puts civilians in danger. It also accuses Hamas of intentionally targeting Israeli civilians with its rocket fire. Three Israelis, all civilians, have died in the fighting, and rocket attacks on Israeli cities continued interrupted Sunday.

A strike Sunday on a three-story home in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya killed a 3-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy from the same family. Hamas security officials said three missiles struck the house, owned by a family that has members who are involved in militants' rocket squads. It was not known if any militants were in or near the house at the time of the strike.

A strike in Gaza City flattened the home of a family known for its support for Hamas, killing three women and a fourth civilian, according to Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra.

Another strike in the city brought down a home near a Hamas police station in the Tufah neighborhood. Rescue workers pulled out the body of a dead woman, along with several surviving members of her family.

In the Shati refugee camp near Gaza City, a missile struck the car of a Hamas militant outside his home, killing him and an 11-year-old girl passing by at the time, al-Kidra said.

Hamas security officials said most of the other houses of Hamas field operatives targeted Sunday were empty, causing no injuries

Israel's chief military spokesman. Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said the military had been ordered to go after Hamas commanders Sunday, in addition to rocket squads, in "more targeted, more surgical and more deadly" attacks.

"I imagine in the next few hours, we will see ongoing targeted attacks on gunmen and Hamas commanders," Mordechai told Army Radio. "More targeted, more surgical and more deadly."

The strikes on the media centers hit two high-rise buildings, damaging the top floor offices of the Hamas TV station, Al Aqsa, and a Lebanese-based broadcaster, Al Quds TV, seen as sympathetic to the Islamists. Six Palestinian journalists were wounded, including one who lost a leg, a Gaza press association said. Foreign broadcasters, including British, German and Italian TV outlets, also had offices in the high-rises.

Two missiles made a direct hit on Al Aqsa TV's 15th floor offices, said Bassem Madhoun, an employee of Dubai TV, which has offices in the same building.

Building windows were blown out and glass shards and debris were scattered on the street below. Some of the journalists who had been inside the building at the time took cover in the entrance hallway.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, said the strikes targeted Hamas communications equipment on the buildings' rooftops. She accused the group of using journalists as "human shields," and urged journalists to stay clear of Hamas bases and facilities.

Leibovich said the military has identified "hundreds" of additional targets as it pressed forward. She acknowledged that civilians were in danger, but said that Gaza militant groups bore the blame.

"One of the strategies of Hamas, not only Hamas, but Islamic Jihad as well, is locating large amounts of munitions underneath civilian homes. Many times this is the reason for this big damage or collateral damage," she said.

The repeated militant rocket fire on Tel Aviv and Friday's attack toward Jerusalem have significantly escalated the hostilities by widening the militants' rocket range and putting 3.5 million Israelis, or half the country's population, within reach. The attempt to strike Jerusalem also has symbolic resonance because both Israel and the Palestinians claim the holy city for a capital.

Israeli radio stations repeatedly interrupted their broadcasts to air "Code Red" alerts warning of impending rocket strikes.

The southern city of Beersheba was unusually quiet Sunday, with streets empty and schools closed. The city's main shopping mall was nearly empty, but still the busiest it has been since the fighting began, shopkeepers said.

One shopper used an application on her iPhone that tracks air-raid sirens across the country. The mall, like other public places, has shelters for shoppers to run into.

With fighting showing no signs of slowing, international attempts to broker a ceasefire continued.

Nabil Shaath, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who was in Cairo, confirmed that the Israeli envoy had arrived in Egypt for talks, saying there are "serious attempts to reach a ceasefire." There was no immediate Israeli confirmation.

Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, spoke to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. He told the Egyptian leader he supports such efforts, provided Hamas receives "guarantees that will prevent any future aggression" by Israel, his office said in a statement.

Morsi over the weekend hosted talks with Hamas' supreme leader, as well as leaders from Hamas allies Turkey and Qatar. He also held contacts with Western leaders.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius visited Israel on Sunday to offer his country's help toward forging an "immediate ceasefire," the French government said.

Meeting with Fabius, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman thanked him for "France's efforts to prevent casualties" but said "the moment that all the terror organizations announce a ceasefire, we can consider all the ideas that French foreign minister and other friends are raising."

___

Aron Heller contributed reporting from Beersheba.

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So, Here’s That ‘Big Bang Theory’ Flashmob You Wanted

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

RELATED: Beating Novak Djokovic: Never Forget Three-Fingered Steve

Psychologist Richard Wiseman has an interactive game for you to let you know you’re just predictable. To be fair, a couple of us tried it out and were not as predictable as Wiseman thought we were going to be. But without further ado, here it is (have some screen cleaner ready):

RELATED: A ‘Mad Men’ Rickroll and the Man That Destroys Carnival Games

RELATED: It’s Sort of Fun Watching Pippa Middleton Squirm

We too are very excited for the Disney installments of Star Wars. New movies, Ewoks, whatever count us in. We’re just not this excited: 

RELATED: A Video to Restore Our Faith in Humanity and a Glacier Tsunami

RELATED: Myspace Hopes Its Sexy New Video will Bring You Back

If you don’t know, The Big Bang Theory is basically a show about a bunch of really smart, really nerdy dorks. Now when it comes to the actual cast of The Big Bang Theory, we’re only pretty sure (and happy to be proven wrong) only one of those things apply:

And finally, do you have $ 37? If so, would you mind donating it to The Atlantic Wire robot fish aquarium fund? We promise, it’s totally a great cause. Thanks in advance!

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion though Egypt saw “some indications” of a truce ahead.

Militant rocket fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning with three rockets fired at the nearby coastal city of Ashkelon, the Israeli army said.

“As of now we have struck more than 1,000 targets, so Hamas should do the math over whether it is or isn’t worth it to cease fire,” Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, over Twitter.

“If there is quiet in the South and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel’s citizens nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack.”

Forty-eight Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 13 children, have been killed in Israel’s raids, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens.

Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the commander of the Hamas Islamist group that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state. Israel’s declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has plagued Israeli border towns for years.

Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. A Gaza City media building was hit, witnesses said, wounding 6 journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain’s Sky News.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop “transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity”.

Two other predawn attacks on houses in the Jabalya refugee camp killed two children and wounded 13 other people, medical officials said.

These attacks followed a defiant statement by Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida, who told a news conference: “This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning.”

The masked gunman dressed in military fatigues insisted that despite Israel’s blows Hamas “is still strong enough to destroy the enemy”.

An Israeli attack on Saturday destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.

Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant’s family understood as a warning to flee, and thus their lives were spared, witnesses said.

Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Among those killed in air strikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding motorcycles, and several civilians including a 30-year-old woman.

ISRAELI SCHOOLS SHUT

Israel said it would keep schools in its south shut on Sunday as a precaution to avoid casualties from rocket strikes reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the past few days.

Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile interceptor system destroyed in mid-air a rocket fired by Gaza militants at Tel Aviv on Saturday, where volleyball games on the beach front came to an abrupt halt as air-raid sirens sounded.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it had fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Israel’s operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel’s right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of calls from world leaders to seek an end to the violence.

British Prime Minister David Cameron “expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides,” in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.

London was “putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate,” the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu “to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end.”

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through “de-escalation” and diplomacy, but also believes Israel has a right to self-defense.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that “there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees.”

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying “there is hope,” but it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

In Jerusalem, an Israeli official declined to comment on the negotiations. Military commanders said Israel was prepared to fight on to achieve a goal of halting rocket fire from Gaza, which has plagued Israeli towns since late 2000, when failed peace talks led to the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

POSSIBLE GROUND OFFENSIVE

Israel, with tanks and artillery positioned along the frontier, said it was still weighing a ground offensive.

Israeli cabinet ministers decided on Friday to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000 and around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: “Definitely.”

“We have a plan. … It will take time. We need to have patience. It won’t be a day or two,” he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel’s maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Douglas Hamilton)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Questions of Blame Linger 34 Years After Jonestown

From the age of 13, Leslie Wagner Wilson had been indoctrinated in the California-based Peoples Temple, led by the charismatic Jim Jones, whose mission was to foster racial harmony and help the poor.

But on Nov. 18, 1978, she and a handful of church members fought their way through thick jungle in the South American country of Guyana, escaping a utopian society gone wrong where followers were starved, beaten and held prisoner in the Jonestown compound.

She walked 30 miles to safety with her 3-year-old son, Jakari, strapped to her back and a smaller group of defectors. But just hours later, the mother, sister and brother and husband she left behind were dead.

“I was so scared,” said Wagner, now 55. “We exchanged phone numbers in case we died. I was prepared to die. I never thought I would see my 21st birthday.”

Today, on the 34th anniversary, Wilson said it’s important to remember the California-based Peoples Temple Jonestown massacre, especially the survivors who have wrestled with their consciences for decades.

PHOTOS: Jonestown Massacre Anniversary

Nine members of her family were among the 918 Americans who died that day, 909 of them ordered by Jones to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in the largest ritual suicide in history.

Her husband, Joe Wilson, was one of Jones’ top lieutenants who helped assassinate congressman Leo Ryan and his press crew when they tried to free church members who were being held against their will.

After arriving back in the United States, Wilson said she “went through hell” — three failed marriages, drug use and suicidal thoughts she describes in her 2009 book, “Slavery of Faith.”

“I was like Humpty Dumpty, but you couldn’t put me back together again,” she said.

Survivors, many of them African-American like Wilson, say they felt guilt and shame and faced the most agonizing question surrounding the nation’s single largest loss of life until 9/11: Was it suicide or murder?

Full Coverage: Jonestown Massacre

In the now-famous “death tape,” supporters clapped and babies cried as Jones instructed families to kill the elderly first, then the youngest in protest against capitalism and racism. Mothers poisoned 246 children before taking their own lives.

“We really can’t understand the Peoples Temple without looking at the historical time period when it arose,” said Rebecca Moore, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University.

“With the liberation movements of the ’60s and ’70s, the collapse of the black-power movement, the Peoples Temple was the main institution in the San Francisco Bay area that promoted a message of integration and racial equality.”

Moore lost her two sisters and her nephew, the son of Jim Jones. “They were hardcore believers,” she said of her siblings.

Jim Jones, who was white, came from a “wrong side of the tracks,” poor background in Indiana where in the 1950s he became known as a charismatic preacher with an affinity for African-Americans.

“A number of survivors, including those who defected, believe to this day he had paranormal abilities,” said Moore, who met him years later. “He could heal them and read their minds.”

In the 1960s, Jones moved to San Francisco, where at the height of the Peoples Temple there were about 5,000 members.

WATCH: A Look Back at Jonestown Massacre

“They wanted my parents to join,” she said. “Like most outsiders, we didn’t have any idea what was happening outside closed doors.”

Jones ingratiated himself with celebrities and politicians, mobilizing voters to help elect Mayor George Moscone in 1975 and becoming chairman of the city’s housing authority.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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NY Times article questions what CEO knew of BBC sex scandal: can Mark Thompson survive?

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The New York Times has turned its guns on one of its own, and right about now Mark Thompson must be looking for somewhere in the corporate suite to hide.

In a devastating article, the paper of record raises questions about what its newly minted chief executive officer knew about a pedophilia scandal at the BBC and when he knew it. Thompson stepped down as BBC director-general in September and assumed his new perch at The Times on Monday.

Yet his cross-Atlantic transition has been turbulent. He has found himself dogged by the scandal engulfing the BBC after allegations emerged that he tried to prevent an exposé by one of the network’s investigative programs into claims that children’s TV host Jimmy Savile routinely coerced teenage girls into having sex. Savile, who died in 2011, was one of the BBC’s biggest stars.

Thompson has maintained that he learned of the claims against Savile after leaving the BBC, but a legal letter indicates that he was aware of the accusations before he stepped down from his post, according to the article in The Times. In the piece, reporter Matthew Purdy writes that lawyers representing Thompson threatened to sue The Sunday Times over an article it was writing that claimed he had squelched his network’s investigative report on Savile’s sexual behavior. The letter was sent 10 days before Thompson resigned from the BBC.

The Sunday Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and is based in the United Kingdom.

“There were other moments during Mr. Thompson’s final months at the BBC – involving brief conversations and articles appearing in London news media – when he might have picked up on the gravity of the Savile case,” Purdy writes. “But the letter is different because it shows Mr. Thompson was involved in an aggressive action to challenge an article about the case that was likely to reflect poorly on the BBC and on him.”

The letter purportedly included a summary of Savile’s alleged abuses. The Times reports that an aide to Thompson said he authorized the letter orally, but was not fully informed about its contents.

After the story broke, speculation mounted on Twitter among media watchers that Thompson’s position at The Times might be in jeopardy.

“The odds on Mark Thompson staying as CEO of the New York Times just changed,” Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, tweeted.

At the very least, it appears that reporters at the paper have taken to heart Public Editor Margaret Sullivan’s charge to cover the BBC scandal aggressively.

“As the BBC has found out in the most painful way, for The Times to pull its punches will not be a wise way to go,” Sullivan wrote.

As Thompson, still nursing Purdy’s uppercut, just found out, The Times looks ready to put some muscle into it.

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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion while also spelling out its conditions for a truce.

Palestinian fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning, with rockets targeting the country's commercial capital Tel Aviv for a fourth day. The two missiles were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome air shield.

Speaking shortly after the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was ready to widen its offensive.

"We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations and the Israel Defence Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation," he said at a cabinet meeting, giving no further details.

Some 51 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 14 children, have been killed since the Israeli offensive began, Palestinian officials said, with hundreds wounded. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three civilians and wounding dozens.

Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the military commander of the Islamist Hamas movement that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has bedeviled Israeli border towns for years and is now displaying greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the crosshairs.

Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. Two Gaza City media buildings were hit, witnesses said, wounding six journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain's Sky News.

An employee of Beirut-based al Quds television station lost his leg in the attack, medics said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop "transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity". International media organizations demanded further clarification.

Three other attacks killed three children and wounded 14 other people, medical officials said, with heavy thuds regularly jolting the small, densely populated coastal enclave.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo, as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that "there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees".

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying "there is hope", but that it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

At a Gaza news conference, Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida voiced defiance, saying: "This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning."

SYRIAN FRONT

Israel's military also saw action along the northern frontier, firing into Syria on Saturday in what it said was a response to shooting aimed at its troops in the occupied Golan Heights. Israel's chief military spokesman, citing Arab media, said it appeared Syrian soldiers were killed in the incident.

There were no reported casualties on the Israeli side from the shootings, the third case this month of violence that has been seen as a spillover of battles between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels trying to overthrow him.

With tanks and artillery poised along the Gaza frontier for a possible ground operation, Israel's cabinet decided on Friday to double the current reserve troop quota set for the offensive to 75,000. Some 30,000 soldiers have already been called up.

"If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack," Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon wrote on Twitter.

Israel's operation so far has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called its right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of appeals from them to seek an end to the hostilities.

Netanyahu, in his comments at Sunday's cabinet session, said he had emphasized in telephone conversations with world leaders "the effort Israel is making to avoid harming civilians, while Hamas and the terrorist organizations are making every effort to hit civilian targets in Israel".

Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005 and two years later Hamas took control of the slender, impoverished territory, which the Israelis have kept under blockade.

PRESSURE ON SIDES TO "DE-ESCALATE"

British Prime Minister David Cameron "expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides", in a conversation with Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.

Britain was "putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate," the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu "to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end."

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through "de-escalation" and diplomacy, but also believed Israel had the right to self-defense.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

A possible move into the Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

The current flare-up around Gaza has fanned the fires of a Middle East ignited by a series of Arab uprisings and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One significant change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, which may narrow Israel's maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

In attacks on Saturday, Israel destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.

Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant's family understood as a warning to flee, witnesses said.

Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Israel's "Iron Dome" missile interceptor system has destroyed more than 200 incoming rockets from Gaza in mid-air since Wednesday, saving Israeli towns and cities from potentially significant damage.

However, one rocket salvo unleashed on Sunday evaded Iron Dome and wounded two people when it hit a house in the coastal city of Ashkelon, police said.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Mark Heinrich)

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