ROBOTYNE, UKRAINE AS UKRAINE’S COUNTER-OFFENSIVE pauses for a well-earned cup of coffee, and Russia launches a sneaky counter-counter-offensive during the break, Kyiv is crying out to the world not to forget its plight as media attention turns to the latest flare-up and Israeli-Palestinian strife. “The media is wickedly fickle,” explains London journalism researcher John Foster…

FROM OUR REPORTER IN CYPRUS THE LATEST HAMAS attack on Israel has created more than a security headache for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, as it appears the Israeli military is running out of kick-ass codenames for its retaliation operations. “We’ve practically used up all our stocks over the years,” says Major Yoni Templemount of…

JERUSALEM A SENIOR MOSSAD officer says she believes that Ukrainian corruption may have played a part in arming Hamas. Miriam, as she is known, lives on the East Coast of the United States as part of an Israeli team that monitors US arms shipments around the world. “It’s no coincidence that millions of dollars in…

JERUSALEM STRATEGY EXPERTS IN Israel have called on the Netanyahu Government to ban all religious holidays in the country after Saturday’s attack by Hamas which came between Sukkot and Simchat Torah. “Yom Kippur 1973, the Egyptians attack and we almost go under; and now this, another religious holiday attack, and another devastating assault on the…

FROM GAZA “WHERE DOES NETANYAHU want Gazans to go when he tells them to get out? To hell?” Human rights lawyer Bashir Murphy De Gaulle, based in Vienna, says Israel’s air strikes into, and other punishments of, Gaza, are window dressing, a temper tantrum. “Bombing a guerilla army like Hamas in this way is like…

KYIV “YOU GOTTA BE SHITTIN’ me!” These are said to be the words of a Ukrainian colonel who has already lost two thirds of his command when told he had to give back half the US supplied equipment so that it could be shipped to Israel. The Americans are now so short of military equipment…

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN BEER SHEVA LEAKS FROM ISRAELI military sources in Jerusalem suggest that much of the country’s military and intelligence community responsible for the Gaza Strip may have been attending a desert rave when Hamas launched its latest attack yesterday. The rave itself was the subject of an assault and the ability of…

FROM WIRE SERVICES AFTER UKRAINE’S PRESIDENT Zelenskyy said Israel had a right to defend itself, Hamas sources in Gaza have said that they plan to send an Israeli tank they captured to Ukraine for use by the Russian army. “You would think that Ukraine would see things from our point of view,” said a Hamas…

KYIV NEWS THAT Ukraine has come out in support of Israel in the latter’s time of need has been somewhat smothered by a report that Ukraine’s offer of tactical and strategic know how has been firmly refused by the Netanyahu Government. “Are they out of their fuckin’ minds?” an Israeli general is reported as saying.…

FROM OUR JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT MONTY PYTHON ALL IN ALL it has not been a terrific weekend for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. First of all he presided over his country’s single biggest intelligence failure since Yom Kippur in 1973. Then he declares war on a Palestinian army that has been at war with Israel since…