UPDATE 1: Two Israeli pilots have allegedly been captured by Hamas (PressTV Live Broadcast)

The Israeli military aircraft al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, [...] claim to have shot down a fighter F16. I refer the militants of the same brigade, with a statement and say that 'being an attempt to recover the remains of the plane, made difficult by shots fired by the Israeli military.

M.O.: Brigate al-Qassam, velivolo israeliano abbattutto e' un F16 - Adnkronos Esteri - Il velivolo militare israeliano che le Brigate al-Qassam, braccio armato di Hamas, sostengono di aver abbattuto sarebbe un caccia F16. Lo riferiscono i militanti delle stesse brigate, con un comunicato in cui affermano che e' in corso un tentativo di recuperare i resti dell'aereo, reso difficile dai colpi sparati dai militari israeliani.

AllVoices: Hamas downed an Israeli drone - Hamas' Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades said it downed an Israeli reconnaissance plane over the eastern Gaza Strip on Thursday. The brigades fired a surface-to-air missile at the aircraft during a raid on Gaza and claimed a direct hit. Hamas published a video of the drone, showing that it dropped. However, the authenticity of the footage was not confirmed by an independent source. Some witnesses confirmed the news, claiming they have seen the plane.

PressTV: Palestinians shoot down Israeli F-16 fighter jet in Gaza - Palestinian fighters have downed an Israeli warplane flying over the Gaza Strip as retaliatory rocket attacks from the enclave continue to sound alarms across Israel. According to Hamas sources, the Israeli F-16 fighter jet was shot down on Friday. Meanwhile, several Israelis were injured after three rockets fired from Gaza hit the Zionist settlement of Gush Etzion in al-Quds.

Israeli peace negotiator Gershon Baskin said Jabari's assassination "killed the possibility of achieving a truce." - Just hours before Israel assassinated Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari on Tuesday, he received the draft proposal of a permanent truce agreement with Israel. But Israel approved the airstrike anyways, choosing escalation over resolution. Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who helped negotiate the release of Gilad Shalit and maintained contacts with Hamas leaders, said the truce agreement included protocols for maintaining a cease-fire in the case of cross-border violence between Israel and Gaza. Baskin told Haaretz that senior officials in Israel knew about the pending truce agreement, but nevertheless approved the assassination, presumably knowing it would terminate the truce and escalate the conflict with Gaza.

“I think that they have made a strategic mistake,” Baskin said, “which will cost the lives of quite a number of innocent people on both sides.” He added that Jabari’s assassination “killed the possibility of achieving a truce.” “This blood could have been spared. Those who made the decision must be judged by the voters, but to my regret they will get more votes because of this,” he added.

A targeted missile strike launched from an Israeli Navy warship has hit a vehicle near the home of Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, according to Israeli media. This comes as Israel intensifies its attacks on Gaza.

Residents say the strike destroyed an electricity generator near Haniyeh’s house. It was unclear whether he was at home at the time of the assault. No casualties have been reported from that incident. Meanwhile an Israeli Defense Force spokesperson has said in an official Twitter: “During the past hour, the IDF targeted approx. 70 underground medium range rocket launching sites in Gaza. Direct hits were confirmed.” This comes as Israel is apparently intensifying its assault on Gaza after it launched the operation “Pillar of Defense” a day ago. Three people have been killed in Israel, while the Palestinian death toll has reached at least 16, including children, say medical sources in Gaza. An Israeli strike killed a UN school teacher in Gaza. Marwan Abu El Qumsan, an Arabic teacher at a UN school, was killed as his car was hit by a bomb on Thursday, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, says on its website.

PressTV: No let-up in Israeli attacks on Gaza
PIC: 30 Israeli raids on the Gaza strip in less than half an hour
NBC News: Egypt PM backs Palestinians as Israel drafts 16,000 reservists
RIA Novosti: Israel ‘Ready to Expand’ Gaza Operation
Bill Van Auken: Israel masses troops on Gaza border as bombardment intensifies

Egypt opened a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy in Gaza today, but hopes for even a brief ceasefire while its prime minister was inside the bombarded enclave to talk to leaders of the Islamist Hamas movement were immediately dashed. - Prime Minister Hisham Kandil arrived in the Gaza Strip today officially to show solidarity with the Palestinian people after two days of relentless attacks by Israeli warplanes determined to end militant rocket fire at Israel. Israel said it would cease fire during the visit if Hamas did too. But rockets fired from Gaza hit several sites in southern Israel and the Israeli air force responded with an attack on the house of Hamas's commander for southern Gaza, a Hamas source said. Medics said it killed two people, one of them a child, raising the Palestinian death toll since Wednesday to 21. Three Israelis were killed by a rocket yesterday.

Reuters: Ceasefire collapses in Gaza - LIVE
PressTV: NAM calls on UNSC to take action against Israeli aggression in Gaza
PressTV: Russia condemns Israel violence against Gaza Strip
Russia Today: Egyptian PM visits Gaza, sides reportedly exchange strikes despite promised ceasefire

Al Jazeera's Shakuntala Santhrian interviews Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian American journalist, and co-founder of Electronic Intifada, an online publication about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli air strikes have continued into the night in Gaza, after a missile killed the military commander of Hamas, Ahmed Jabari. Dozens of rockets have been fired back into southern Israel following the strike. One has hit a shopping centre in a major Israeli city. At least eight people have been reported killed in Gaza so far - including three civilians. Residential buildings are among those destroyed.

Gilad Atzmon: Here is a rare opportunity to watch Ali Abunimah doing what he is good at. Abunimah is certainly one of the best Palestinian spokespersons. Here he manages to present the correct time line that led to the current escalation in Gaza. Abunimah better concentrate on exposing Israeli criminality, rather than chasing the enemies of Israel within our ranks. However, in this short interview Abunimah refers twice to Israel's 'irrational lust for violence' and I am left slightly puzzled. Just a year ago, the same Abunimah was outraged by my criticism of Jewish and Israeli culture. I would love to learn from Abunimah what he has in mind when he talks about 'Israel’s lust for violence'. Isn’t he directly referring here to some sort of collective culture or even biology? Can we grasp the notion of ‘lust’ without a reference to biology or culture?

AWIP: Israeli Airstrikes Pound Gaza (raw footage)
PCHR: New Israeli Military Escalation against the Gaza Strip
Gilad Atzmon: Tel Aviv is next
Adrian Salbuchi: Hypocrisy of slaughter: Israel’s Orwellian account of Gaza campaign
Nahida Izzat: Conflict of Interest and the Obliteration of Concept of Liberation

The BBC has apologised to Lord Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, after he suggested the conflict in Gaza was fuelled by tensions in the region over Iran when caught off guard live on Radio 4's Today programme.

Lord Sacks had just completed one of his regular “Thought for the Day” broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 when he was asked by the Today programme presenter, Evan Davis, if he had “any thoughts” on the clashes in the Middle East. The Orthodox Jewish leader paused and sighed audibly, before suggesting that Iran was the real issue behind the crisis. Mr Davis’s informal style has won plaudits for BBC radio’s flagship news programme since he joined the presenting team. He frequently makes unscripted interjections – usually after another presenter has finished interviewing a guest - and asks the interviewee for a view on an unexpected subject, before moving to the next item. However this approach appeared momentarily to confuse the Chief Rabbi today. Mr Davis said: “Jonathan, before you go, you know, any thoughts on what’s going on over in Israel and Gaza at the moment?” Lord Sacks sighed, before replying: “I think it has got to do with Iran, actually.”

Gilad Atzmon: Caricature Chief Rabbi Sacks Caught off Guard

AN unfettered internet, free of political control and available to everyone could be relegated to cyber-history under a contentious proposal by a little known United Nations body. - Experts claim that Australians could see political and religious websites disappear if the Federal Government backs a plan to hand control over the internet to the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU). A draft of the proposal, formulated in secret and only recently posted on the ITU website for public perusal, reveal that if accepted, the changes would allow government restriction or blocking of information disseminated via the internet and create a global regime of monitoring internet communications – including the demand that those who send and receive information identify themselves. It would also allow governments to shut down the internet if there is the belief that it may interfere in the internal affairs of other states or that information of a sensitive nature might be shared.

Susanne Posel: Obama Secret Directive Gives Cyber-Control to Military For National Security

US President Barack Obama appears set to nominate UN Ambassador Susan Rice to replace Hillary Clinton as his next Secretary of State despite threats by Republican Senators to oppose the move. - Congressional aides and Democratic strategists said on Thursday that by defending Rice on Wednesday against what he called "outrageous" Republican criticism for her remarks following the deadly September 11 attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Obama was gambling on a confirmation victory, hoping to deter GOP lawmakers from challenging his nominations for his upcoming second term as often as they did in his first term. Obama insisted he had not yet made a final decision on whether to choose Rice. But the Democratic observers said it would be difficult now for Obama to choose another candidate, because it would signal weakness in an opening tangle with a Senate Republican caucus that appears eager to challenge him.

Despite the outward appearance of wealth, Ms Kelley and her husband appear to be millions of dollars in debt. Moreover, her relationship with several senior men in uniform is now at the centre of an FBI investigation.

To all outward appearances, Ms Kelley is the wife of a successful Tampa surgeon. She moved to the city roughly a decade ago and has since become one of its most energetic socialites. A fixture on the local party scene, and occasional reality TV star, she became an unofficial "social liaison" for top brass at MacDill, where the military oversees its operations in Afghanistan. When she isn't bringing up her three children, Ms Kelley, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, devotes her life to raising money for charity and brightening up the cocktail circuit. The editor of society magazine Tampa Bay says that lavish parties thrown at Ms Kelley's home, on Bayshore Boulevard, the city's smartest street, has made her a fixture in his pages. One army officer told the Washington Post that she was famed locally as a "rich socialite who likes to hang around with four-star generals". Trouble began in May when Ms Kelley and several of her contacts began receiving emails from someone writing under the pseudonym "Kelleypatrol". One sent to John Allen warned that she was "trouble". The messages sent to her were more threatening, and reportedly contained such phrases as: "I know what you did" and "Keep off my man!"

AWIP: Working for Israel: Five Facts About the Petraeus Affair’s Mystery Woman - She had done exceedingly well, for a modest daughter of Maronite Catholics and restaurant owners, who had immigrated from Lebanon in the mid-1970s. Perhaps it was an American dream come true? - Or was it rather something entirely different? Was it in Northeast Philadelphia that Mossad's agents enlisted her and her identical twin sister to work for Israel in the U.S. or was it in Florida, where she frequently hosted parties for the area's military brass? Israel has used honey traps a number of times before. This would mean that Israel controlled Petraeus, a top U.S. general and Director of the CIA, via his secret lover, Ms. Kelley. Her handlers in Tel Aviv probably tasked her with talking to the FBI so that things would start rolling. So, what was Israel's problem? - Petraeus had been "unfaithful" to the shitty little state by saying (in 2010) that that "US interests and Israeli interests are not identical," and that "Israel might be a strategic burden, rather than an asset to the United States." - Wow! Such thoughts are absolutely verboten in Zionized America. The general was in trouble. He had to be replaced. A political coup (of sorts) was in short order, and the Director of the CIA would have to be replaced by someone more faithful to Israel.

Economic Policy Journal: Are the Twins Operatives for a Foreign Intelligence Agency? - The fact that socialite Jill Kelley's maiden name is Khawam and that she was born in Lebanon to Maronite Christian parents should raise eyebrows a bit. (Note that the Maronite Christians were allies of Israel in the Lebanese Civil War/Lebanon invasion.) The fact that she and her husband were willing to go into debt to throw lavish parties for high level officers who are involved in the Middle East should make even the most resolute anti-CTers among us pause. The further fact that she is identified as an unofficial liason between top American Generals and unspecified Middle Eastern contacts, well...[Source]

Scores of people are medically isolated after outbreak 40 miles from Kampala, months after a separate strain killed at least 16. - Scores of people have been medically isolated to prevent the spread of a new outbreak of Ebola in Uganda, the scene of increasingly regular outbreaks of deadly haemorrhagic fevers that have left health officials grappling for answers. The cluster of Ebola cases was confirmed on Wednesday in a district 40 miles (60km) from the capital, Kampala, and comes roughly a month after Uganda declared itself free of the disease following an earlier outbreak in a remote district in the west of the country. Last month at least five people in south-west Uganda were killed by Marburg, a haemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola. The latest Ebola outbreak, officials say, is of the Sudan strain of the virus and not linked to the previous one, of the Congo variety, which killed at least 16 people between July and August in the western district of Kibaale. At least three people have died in the latest outbreak, and up to 15 are being monitored for signs of the disease, officials said. They advised against panic after it was revealed that two possible Ebola patients had since checked into Kampala's main referral hospital.