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Daybreak: Assad Insists He Will Stay

Plus, to the shores of Tripoli, pressure to escalate in Gaza, and more in the news

by
Marc Tracy
August 22, 2011
Libyan rebels celebrating outside Tripoli this morning.(-/AFP/Getty Images)
Libyan rebels celebrating outside Tripoli this morning.(-/AFP/Getty Images)

• As the week began, Israel was settling the weekend’s crises with Egypt and with Gaza. More at 10. [NYT/NYT]

• In a television interview yesterday, Syrian President Bashar Assad was defiant about U.S. and European calls for him to relinquish power. [NYT]

• Rebel fighters took Tripoli, though Col. Muammar Gaddafi remains at large. [WP]

• The United Nations report on the Gaza flotilla will be delayed yet again in the absence of an Israeli-Turkish rapprochement, this time primarily at Turkey’s request. [Haaretz]

• Several Israeli politicians, including in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet, called for an escalation of the weekend’s Gaza conflict, but Israel here is hemmed in by the Egyptian regime as it was not before. [LAT]

• The two remaining American hikers (“hikers”?) in Iran were each sentenced to eight years in prison, unexpectedly harsh terms. [AP/WP]

• The weekend’s violence proved a major distraction (a welcome one, for Bibi, one imagines) from the domestic social-justice protests that have roiled Israel over the past few weeks. [AP/WP]

• Will Syria allow U.N. inspectors an unadulterated look at the shelled Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia? [LAT]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.