News of the Weird: Middle East Edition

If the opposite of a news story is more newsworthy, is the news story actually news at all? This one comes from Reuters:

Israel is involved in a covert war of sabotage inside Iran to try to delay Tehran's alleged attempts to develop a nuclear weapon, a British newspaper said on Tuesday, quoting a former CIA agent and intelligence experts.

An intelligence source in the Middle East told Reuters last year Israel planned to target Iranian nuclear scientists with letter bombs and poisoned packages and had set off explosions in Iran. Analysts offered similar accounts and said such tactics would be credible, but no confirmation has been available.

Would covert operations by Israel against Iran qualify as news, or would it be more newsworthy if Israel was not engaged in covert operations against Iran? I tend to think it would be more newsworthy if Israel was doing nothing, but that's just me. Something about the whole hate-hate relationship between those two countries suggests both countries are working to undermine the other, but I could be wrong.

This is another strange news story from the Middle East, this time from the AP:

Five tons of unexploded Israeli bombs stored in the Gaza Strip under Hamas police guard have been stolen, U.N. officials said Tuesday.

U.N. spokesman Richard Miron said the explosives were being stored in Gaza until a U.N. team of disposal experts could disarm them, but they disappeared.

You mean unexploded Israeli bombs under Hamas police guard has disappeared. Shocking..., again, I think the opposite would actually be more newsworthy, but only because Israel did spend several weeks dropping bombs on the Gaza strip just last month. Who would have thought Hamas wouldn't hold a grudge? Apparently, the UN and AP are two such organizations who are apparently surprised and think this would be news.

Next thing you know we'll be hearing shocking revelations about Syria developing NBC for missile technologies... oh wait, nevermind.