Over Easy

The community that began with Southern Dragon’s Lakeside Diner continues. Today we collect news from outside the usual, and renew the discussion.

In the course of its declared five hour truce, Israel has announced that attackers were discovered tunneling into Israel from Gazas and have been met with armed force.

The attempted attack came amid continued Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in the run up to a temporary truce between Israel and Palestinian fighters to allow humanitarian aid to enter the area.

The army said early on Thursday that Israel had conducted 37 raids overnight on Gaza, while seven rockets were fired from Gaza, four of which landed in fields and the rest were intercepted by Israel’s missile defences, the AFP news agency reported.

The truce came into effect at 10am (7am GMT).

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker said the truce would allow some repairs to infrastructure, such as electricity lines.

The truce comes a day after four children were killed when the Israeli army shelled a beach near Gaza’s port.

The Israeli army said it was targeting ‘Hamas terrorists’ and would investigate the incident.

Tensions associated with children crossing the southern borders of the U.S. to find security of a sort here pales in comparison to the worldwide refugee crisis, particularly in Lebanon. There, 600,000 children are estimated to be living in that country to escape violence and danger in Syria.

Lebanon and the Lebanese people shoulder a great and growing burden due to the strain of accepting more than 1 million people into this small country. This openness and generosity to people in need have been recognized and applauded internationally, most recently on July 14, when the United Nations’ Security Council passed a resolution that highlighted the significant and admirable efforts of Lebanon and other neighboring nations in helping the refugees. The Security Council also noted that the humanitarian situation will continue to deteriorate without a political solution to the crisis in Syria, and urged donors to assist Lebanon and other countries as they deal with this crisis.

While children flee from Central American countries to find better living conditions in the U.S., the U.N. seeks alleviating the conditions (apology for the link, but WND is another nonstandard news source) by ‘defining them as “refugees” who are seeking asylum from political and domestic violence in their home nations.’ Others can help in many ways, and I personally am here enjoying the idyllic country of Honduras at the moment bringing tourist trade and dollars. Okay, not a sacrifice but after digging artifacts in Belize it’s a refuge, itself.

The discovery of a new bloodsucking mite at unheard of depths in Puerto Rican waters has been celebrated by scientists who gave the new life form a name honoring Jennifer Lopez.

Rather than striking a canny resemblance to Lopez, biologists say that the Litarachna lopezae was given its new title as a ‘small token of gratitude’ for the singer’s music, which they listened to as they wrote about their findings.

‘The reason behind the unusual choice of name for the new species is … simple: J.Lo’s songs and videos kept the team in a continuous good mood when writing the manuscript and watching World Cup soccer 2014,’ said biologist Vladimir Pesic, who works at the University of Montenegro, according to Associated Press.

The mite was found at a depth of nearly 70m on a coral reef in Mona Passage, a dangerous body of water that separates Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. According to their study, this is the greatest depth that pontarachnid mite has ever been discovered.

Never.Give.Up.