Al Jazeera report.

At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured when troops intercepted the convoy of ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla early on Monday, Israeli radio reported.

The flotilla was attacked in international waters, 65km off the Gaza coast.

BBC report.

More than 10 people have been killed after Israeli commandos stormed a convoy of ships carrying aid to the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army says.

[...]

It happened about 40 miles (64 km) out to sea, in international waters.

Times report.

Three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline.

The first has been sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organisation in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers.

IMEMC report.

Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, stated Friday afternoon that the solidarity ships, filled with medical and humanitarian supplies, and heading to Gaza, is a "violent propaganda against Israel", and vowed not to allow the ship to reach Gaza.

BBC report.

Israel says it will not take part in a conference aimed at achieving a nuclear-arms free Middle East, proposed at a UN meeting in New York.

Jerusalem Post report.

Although it is obvious that the Pentagon has contingency plans for all possible scenarios, one Israeli official said this was "the first time that the public is getting word of practical preparations of military activity."

Washington Times article.

[...] a U.S. air-war planner in the Persian Gulf War tells The Washington Times he does not think Israel's relatively small air force -- compared with the United States huge bomber and cruise-missile fleet -- has the firepower to properly hit all the necessary Iranian targets.

The only real way to stop Iran's atomic bomb, said retired Air Force Col. John Warden, is for the U.S. to shut down Iran's electric generation for the foreseeable future -- a strategy not currently on the Pentagon's table.

Independent report.

Mordechai Vanunu, the nuclear whistleblower who spent 18 years in prison, went back to jail yesterday for violating the terms of his parole.

Gary Younge in the Guardian.

That Israel would try to do so on the backs of black South Africans is a laughable indication of its desperation. For if Goldstone was complicit in apartheid's crimes, then Israel was far more so. Israel was South Africa's principle and most dependable arms dealer. As we learn elsewhere in the Guardian today, it even offered to sell the South African regime nuclear weapons.

Juan Cole writes.

Obama mysteriously has ceased leading on the Iran issue and is instead showing himself willing to be led. Thus have the pragmatic hawks (with the war hawks waiting in the wings) defeated the Realists and the liberal internationalists. Obama stabbed Turkey and Brazil in the back after asking them to risk their face for him. Obama is giving Iran the impression that he is indecisive. All of this backtracking for the sake of a sanctions regime that is highly unlikely actually to change Iran's behavior, contrary to the express hopes of Secretary Gates. Obama's current Iran policy cannot be explained in the terms of US-Iranian relations. It must be driven by something else. The Israel lobbies and dealings with the Netanyahu government are the likeliest candidates in explaining the abandonment of a Realist approach.

Guardian report.

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

IMEMC report.

The United States Senate approved the American President's plan to grant Israel more than $200 Million meant for the development of Israel's Iron Dome that intercepts short-range missiles.

David Rothkopf in Foreign Policy on the new nuclear agreement.

[...] the effort is significant on another level. It represents the return of Plan B both to Middle Eastern and global relations. During the Cold War, international actors typically had a binary choice. They could seek the favor and advocacy of the East or the West, the Soviets or the Americans. Then, almost twenty years ago that all ended. And for a while it appeared, the choice was America or an international community that couldn't get its act together terribly effectively.

But Turkey and Brazil working closely with Russia, India, and China, have effectively sent a message that Plan B has returned to the global equation. They have essentially said they didn't want to go along with the American approach to solving the problem (sanctions) and were vehemently against the Israeli approach (bombs away).

Robert Fisk in the Independent.

Within 48 hours of becoming Foreign Secretary, William Hague faces a political crisis over the Middle East. The emirate of Dubai has named a British citizen as a 19th suspect of the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Hamas official murdered in the emirate four months ago, apparently by a group that included holders of forged British passports. According to a source in the United Arab Emirates, the suspect arrived in Dubai under his own name and carrying a genuine British passport.

Reuters report.

Russia has signed deals to sell Syria warplanes, anti-tank weapons and air defense systems, a senior Russian arms trader said on Friday, prompting an outcry from Syria's foe Israel.

IMEMC report.

Turkey has installed Anti-Aircraft Hawk Missiles at a village close to the Syrian border in an attempt to prevent Israeli war jets from violating Turkish Airspace in case of an attack against Iran or Syria.