Egyptian

Israeli troops shot and killed a man attempting to infiltrate Israel from the Egyptian border.

Israeli soldiers killed one of three terrorists who were crossing from Egypt early Wednesday morning. The other two fled ito Egyptian territory.

Back in 1948, liberals were excited when President Harry Truman took to whistle-stopping and scorching the "do nothing 80th Congress" run by Republicans. "Give 'em hell, Harry," they cried. They loved it, too, when Harry recognized the State of Israel, just eleven minutes after it proclaimed independence. Liberals cared a lot about Israel's precarious existence back then.

"This is language that we have not heard since the time of Gamal Abdul Nasser." Thus wrote the influential chief editor of Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, referring to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's fiery response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza flotilla -- adding that such "manly" positions and rhetoric had "disappeared from the dictionaries of our Arab leaders (since the demise of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser)." He lamented, "Arab regimes now represent the only friends left to Israel." (From the CSM,

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — An Egyptian security official declared the blockade of Gaza a failure Monday and said his country will keep its border with the Palestinian territory open indefinitely.

Israel has long defended itself through a "doctrine of retaliatory action," which President Eisenhower angrily characterized in 1955 -- after savage Israeli reprisal raids into Gaza and Jordan -- as "more like a head for an eye than an eye for an eye." The doctrine has not worked since Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon, which, in common with Gaza today, was launched to punish missile attacks (from Hezbollah country) and force the release of two Israeli soldiers seized by Lebanese guerrillas and carried back across the border.

Although the wisdom of Israel's actions in stopping the Gaza flotilla is open to question, the legality of its actions is not. What Israel did was entirely consistent with both international and domestic law. In order to understand why Israel acted within its rights, the complex events at sea must be deconstructed.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Pro-Palestinian activists sent another boat to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Egypt declared it was temporarily opening a crossing into the Palestinian territory after a raid on an aid flotilla that ended with Israeli soldiers killing nine activists.

The raid provoked ferocious international condemnation of Israel, raised questions at home, and appeared likely to increase pressure to end the blockade that has deepened the poverty of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the strip.

CAIRO — An Egyptian official says the government is temporarily lifting its blockade of the Gaza Strip to allow aid into the area a day after Israel raided an international flotilla carrying supplies to the Palestinian territory and killed nine activists.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Israel and called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council as criticism and condemnations arose across Europe and the Arab world Monday over Israel's deadly commando raid on ships taking humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Turkey's prime minister described the raid as "state terrorism," saying that Israel had violated international law and shown that it does not want peace in the region.