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On Tuesday of last week – the night of the US elections – Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, ordered an attack on the Gaza Strip designed to scupper a truce that gave a welcome respite to the suffering of Palestinians.

Textile workers in the Egyptian town of Mahalla al-Kubra staged a protest on Thursday of last week against plans to privatise the company.

Egyptian security used torture and cooked up evidence against workers arrested following mass protests that erupted in the town of Mahalla earlier this year.

The trial of 49 Egyptian workers in Mahalla opened last Saturday, with 25 of the accused in a cage in court. The trial has been adjourned to 1 September.

The death of Youssef Chahine on 27 July means that Egypt has lost the last great director from the 1950s generation.

Egyptian opposition groups and workers’ associations are calling for international support for 49 people arrested during the state crackdown on protesters in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla al-Kubra in April.

Solidarity with the people of Mahalla – Stop the show trial of Egyptian protesters We the undersigned express our full solidarity with the 49 Egyptian citizens, whom the Mubarak regime has decided to prosecute in an Emergency High State Security Criminal Court, accused of involvement in the two day uprising in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla in April.

Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Mahmoud Abbas have launched a crackdown on the Hamas resistance movement in the occupied West Bank.

Gordon Brown used an address to the Knesset – the Israeli parliament – earlier this week to make new threats against Iran and label those who oppose Israel as "antisemites".

The US-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak is prosecuting 49 Egyptians in the Emergency High State Security Criminal Court. It is accusing them of involvement in the recent two day uprising in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla.

Palestine’s most celebrated cartoonist, Naji Al-Ali, would have been so delighted. His iconic character, Hanthala, the eleven year old refugee boy, who, before Al-Ali’s assassination, exposed the Arab world to some bitter truths about the failure of solidarity with the Palestinians, has re-appeared in the most unexpected circumstances.

The ceasefire announced last week between Israel and Hamas will bring much needed relief to the 1.4 million Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip.