Today’s Top Stories
1. 40 members of UAE aid convoy to Gaza revealed as intelligence agents.
Commentators say that suspicions should have been aroused when the convoy was allowed by the Egyptians to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, as no other convoys have been allowed to enter since the start of the Israeli attack and invasion. Media reports on Saturday said that the Egyptian army has banned and attacked three international aid convoys trying to enter the enclave.
2. Did Israel strike a Hamas weapons stockpile in Sudan? The Jerusalem Post picks up on an Arab media reporting just that:
The Arabic-language UK-based newspaper Al-Arab reported that the government in Sudan is not confirming the incident in order to cover up relations with the terrorist organization in Gaza. Such ties could entangle the country’s president Omar al-Bashir with an accusation of supporting terrorism from the US and Western nations.
The attack came only hours after Israel accused the Sudanese government of storing long range missiles for Hamas.
3. While the world was distracted by Gaza and MH17, more than 700 Syrians were killed in 48 hours as ISIS tightened its grip on the countryside.
4. Analysis Of Gazans Killed So Far In Operation Protective Edge: A closer look at Gaza’s casualty figures calls into question the number of Palestinian civilians killed during Operation Protective Edge.
5. It’s the Terror Tunnels, Stupid: Memo to the New York Times: What if Hamas had built bomb shelters instead of terror tunnels?
6. Can We Call it a War, and What’s the Difference? At what point can a conflict or crisis be termed a war?
7. Hamas Reveals Media Strategy: Supporters instructed how to manipulate public sentiment.
8. Sign the Petition Demanding Honest Reporting: Please sign and share. We plan to send this petition to the major media networks on Sunday, August 3.
Operation Protective Edge
• For details on today’s developments, see live-blogs at the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Times of Israel, and i24 News.
• IDF forces killed at least 10 Palestinian terrorists infiltrating Israel near Kibbutz Nir this morning. See YNet coverage and IDF footage.
• How’s this for a new low in human shields? The Irish Times describes Hamas rocket fire from near a cemetery — during a funeral.
As hundreds of mourners ascend the mounds of mud leading to another newly dug grave, a loud whooshing sound rises just beyond the cemetery. From behind a nearby house, two long rockets zoom skyward, Israel-bound. A roar from the crowd. “Allahu Akbar!” they cry as one.  It’s mid-morning in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza strip, and Hamas is burying one of its dead.
• Israel also released footage of Palestinians firing from homes.
• The Times of Israel reports that soldiers in Gaza killed a female suicide bomber.
• Among the IDF casualties were two Americans. Max Steinberg was a sharpshooter from Los Angeles, and Sgt. Nissim Sean Carmeli was from South Padre Island, Texas.
• The Daily Telegraph visited Israeli communities near the Gaza border to gauge how people are dealing with the threat of terror tunnel infiltrators.
“The main thing is that we can’t really leave our houses”, says Esther, describing her fear of militants from Gaza infiltrating the area near the community that has been declared a closed military zone by the IDF.  “In the morning, the kids come here to the children’s house, and stay here the whole day. [ …] Look around you, we live on a farm, and we can’t take advantage of it. We have a swimming pool, but no one is in it. There are soldiers all around – on the one hand it is reassuring, but on the other, it’s freaky.”
• John Kerry‘s flying back to the Mideast to push a ceasefire.
• A phony press card would’ve completed the disguise. CTV’s Janis Mackey Frayer has a sharp eye.
• Anti-war protests continued around the world. A wave of anti-Semitic protests hit Germany. Pro-Israel activists were attacked outside Calgary‘s city hall by a mob chanting “kill the Jews.” In Britain, 80 percent of the country’s Jews say they feel blamed for Israel’s actions. A Palestinian activist admitted that pro-Israel protesters would’ve been “massacred” in front of Toronto‘s Palestine House if not for the presence of police. And France? Pro-Palestinian protesters raided a Jewish neighborhood outside of Paris.
Rioters threw a Molotov cocktail at a religious institution next to the synagogue, setting alight a Jewish pharmacy and mini-market, burned vehicles, destroyed property and wreaked havoc at the city’s train station while police tried to secure the area.
• 40 members of UAE aid convoy to Gaza revealed as intelligence agents.
Commentators say that suspicions should have been aroused when the convoy was allowed by the Egyptians to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, as no other convoys have been allowed to enter since the start of the Israeli attack and invasion. Media reports on Saturday said that the Egyptian army has banned and attacked three international aid convoys trying to enter the enclave.
• Despite the rockets, more than 220 North American families are making aliyah this week, catching the Times of Israel‘s attention. One of those families — David and Helaine Brenner of Baltimore — caught the attention of the Baltimore Sun.
Heading into a war zone was never part of the plan for the Brenners, both observant Jews. But the erupting tensions haven’t deterred them either, the couple said Sunday, as they drove to New York in a rented minivan crammed with eight oversized duffel bags, four carry-on suitcases, four backpacks and one bass guitar.
• Only in Israel: Man who ran for shelter gets NIS 250 parking fine
• The Explosive, Inside Story of How John Kerry Built an Israel-Palestine Peace Plan—and Watched It Crumble
Media Angles
• The foreign press corps is being more careful with the way it handles Palestinian claims of “massacres.” Boaz Bismuth says journalists learned a lesson from Jenin.
• The web was awash with rumors and unconfirmed reports last night that Hamas captured an Israeli soldier. Buzzfeed‘s Sheera Frenkel did a nice job laying out what was known, what wasn’t, before calling into question the veracity of Hamas’ claims.
• An IDF image making the rounds on social media is also making news in the UK:
 Houses of Parliament ‘under attack’ in Israeli army tweet to justify Gaza invasion
• Despite European protests claiming otherwise, Western media hasn’t become pro-Israel, writes Tom Gross.
• In Gaza, Epithets are Fired and Euphemisms Give Shelter
• Israeli officials continued their media offensive. Prime Minister Netanyahu appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulis (as did Hanan Ashrawi).
Bibi also appeared on CNN’s State of the Union (as did UNRWA’s Robert Turner).
• Palestinian cameraman killed in Gaza
• Noah Pollak has a bone to pick with the New York Times.
Commentary/Analysis
• In a Wall St. Journal op-ed (click via Google News), Michael Mukasey argues that the terror tunnels are more strategically valuable to Hamas than its rockets. He also suggests that the conflict escalated when Israel destroyed a terror tunnel on July 5.  This threw Hamas into a panic.
Hamas now saw its strategic plan unraveling. The tunnel network gave it the ability to launch a coordinated attack within Israel like the 2008 Islamist rampage in Mumbai that killed 164 people.
• This Times of London staff-ed gets it:
The deaths of Palestinians, many of them children, are the direct and predictable outcome of Hamas’s tactics and its use of civilians as, in effect, human shields. Instead of providing good governance and economic development, anticipating statehood, Hamas practises theocratic thuggery. Palestinians are paying an unconscionable price.
• Israel’s strategy in the twenty-first century against hostile non-state groups, such as Hamas, reflects the assumption that Israel finds itself in a protracted intractable conflict. The use of force in such a conflict is not intended to attain impossible political goals, but rather is a long-term strategy of attrition designed primarily to debilitate the enemy capabilities. Only after showing much restraint in its military responses, does Israel act forcefully to destroy the capabilities of its foes as much as possible, hoping that occasional large-scale operations also have a temporary deterrent effect in order to create periods of quiet along Israel’s borders.
• What would you do if you had 90 seconds to take shelter, asks the Huffington Post‘s Liat Kornowski.
So how can you relate?
Imagine going to work. Imagine getting in your car to go to work, buckling your kids in their car seats and planning your escape route en route because if the sirens go off, you have 90 seconds at best to pull over, other cars be damned, get out, get your kids out, place them gently on the ground and cover them with your body while placing your arms over your head because you won’t survive a direct hit, but you might mitigate the devastation caused by shrapnel.
• I wonder if I’ll live long enough to see a really snooty and barely readable commentary in The Guardian titled “How the resistance corrupts the resister.”
• See also Jackson Diehl and Amos Harel.
Featured image: CC BY-SA HonestReporting, flickr/Richard Heaven, mower via Flickr/todbaker
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
