Egypt registered a formal complaint with Israel over the killings of three Egyptian officers at the Sinai border and demanded an immediate investigation on Aug. 19, one day after militants carried out deadly attacks near Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat. Egyptian security officials said that the three officers were killed when an Israeli helicopter fired at suspected militants who had fled into a crowd of security personnel on the Egyptian side of the border. Dozens of Egyptians demonstrated outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo, burning the Israeli flag and chanting, "Close the embassy! Expel the ambassador!" (AlJazeera, NYT, Aug. 19)

Israeli air-strikes across the Gaza Strip on Aug. 18 killed at least seven—including Popular Resistance Committees official Khaled Shaath, but also his two-year-old son and a 13-year-old Palestinian boy. The air raids came after coordinated militant attacks left seven Israelis dead—six civilians and one soldier—near the Red Sea tourist town of Eilat. Palestinian gunmen attacked two buses and two cars traveling near the southern resort city just after noon. When Israeli troops arrived, roadside bombs planted by the militants were detonated. Seven militants were killed in subsequent firefights with the soldiers. Israeli officials said they believe that militants crossed from the Gaza Strip into Egypt in order to infiltrate Israel's border near Eilat. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the attacks "demonstrate the weakening of Egypt's control over the Sinai Peninsula and the expansion of terrorist activity there." (JTA, Maan News Agency, Aug. 18)

US Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is promoting a bill to suspend Washington's assistance to three elite Israel Defense Forces units, alleging they are involved in human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Leahy wants aid withheld from the Israeli navy's Shayetet 13 unit, the undercover Duvdevan unit and the Israel Air Force's Shaldag unit. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a long-time friend of Leahy, met with him in Washington two weeks ago to try to persuade him to withdraw the initiative. Leahy began promoting the legislation after protesters staged a rally outside office, demanding that he denounce the killing by Shayetet 13 commandos of nine Turkish activists who were part of the flotilla to Gaza in May 2011. Leahy, who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee's sub-committee on foreign operations, was the principle sponsor of a 1997 bill prohibiting the US from providing military assistance to foreign military units suspected of human rights abuses or war crimes.

An estimated 300,000 marched in cities and towns across Israel Aug. 6—the biggest mobilization yet in a growing movement for economic justice. More than 200,000 marched in Tel Aviv alone—one of the largest demonstrations in the history of the Jewish state. Even after the march ended, a hardcore of several hundred protesters blocked the intersection of Rehov Kaplan and Ibn Gvirol, two of the city's main arteries, singing Jewish songs late into the night and and chanting the movement's token slogan: "The people demand social justice!" (Jerusalem Post, Aug. 7) Israel's progressive 972Mag shows a photo of a giant banner from the rally with the word "Go!" in Arabic—a key symbol of the protest movement that brought down Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and a clear reference to Benjamin Netanyahu. Below, in Hebrew, are the words: "Egypt is here!"

In what the Jerusalem Post calls a "signal of growing Sino-Israeli ties," Gen. Chen Bingde, chief of General Staff of China's People’s Liberation Army, will visit Israel next week as a guest of Israeli Defense Forces Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen.Benny Gantz. Bingde’s visit follows Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s visit to China in June, the first by an Israeli defense minister to the Asian superpower in a decade. The visits come as Israel Aerospace Industries is bidding to set up a factory in China to build executive jets with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China. Although this would be a deal to build civilian aircraft, it is portrayed as a step towards rebuilding commercial military ties, which have stagnated in recent years due to US pressure on Tel Aviv.

We recently noted that militant West Bank settlers have joined the Tel Aviv tent town protest, pitching a line that aggressive settlement of the West Bank is the solution to the crisis—a fascistic pseudo-solution predicated on expropriating others of their lands. We asked whether the protest movement will take the bait. Here, fortunately, is a statement from the opposite tendency—linking the expropriation of the Israeli working class to that of the Palestinians, and building unity rather than sowing further division. A "Letter from Tel Aviv," Aug. 4:

The Supreme Court of Israel on Aug. 2 issued for the first time an order for the Israeli government to dismantle an illegal outpost in the West Bank. The order calls for Migron, the largest "illegal" outpost in the West Bank, to be razed by the end of March 2012. The action came as the result of a petition filed by Peace Now in 2006 calling for the court to order Migron to be dismantled. In response the government had decided to remove the flagship settlement outpost (established by the Binyamin Regional Council) by August 2008, but later reached a compromise with settlers that delayed the razing until the state could build them a new neighborhood in a nearby settlement. However, the delay only allowed more houses to be built, and the Court noted during deliberations that the intended two-year postponement had actually turned into an indefinite delay.

Israeli soldiers fired tear gas Aug. 5 to disperse the weekly anti-wall protest in the Palestinian village of Bil'in, west of Ramallah on the West Bank—marking the first Friday of the Ramadan holy month. (Ma'an News Agency, Aug. 5) Thousands gathered at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque for prayers, despite Israeli restrictions that barred Palestinian men under the age of 50 from entering the city. (MSNBC, AFP, Aug. 5)