In a "background paper"
on "issues of proportionality" drawn up in December 2008, in the
countdown to the Gaza offensive, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign
Affairs claimed that "the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) makes strenuous
efforts to give advance notice to the civilian population in the middle
of military targets, including places used by terrorists for storing
weapons and launching attacks, so that they have an opportunity to
leave the area." How hollow this rings as Gaza runs with blood, and how untrue. Operation Cast Lead was unleashed, without warning, at 11.30am,
when urban areas of Gaza are at their most crowded and children
compelled to attend school in shifts because of the ...

In a "background paper"
on "issues of proportionality" drawn up in December 2008, in the
countdown to the Gaza offensive, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign
Affairs claimed that "the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) makes strenuous
efforts to give advance notice to the civilian population in the middle
of military targets, including places used by terrorists for storing
weapons and launching attacks, so that they have an opportunity to
leave the area." How hollow this rings as Gaza runs with blood, and how untrue. Operation Cast Lead was unleashed, without warning, at 11.30am,
when urban areas of Gaza are at their most crowded and children
compelled to attend school in shifts because of the scarcity of educational resources are on the move. Would anyone with even a scrap of humanity call hundreds of dead, not to mention thousands of wounded,
maimed and traumatised, "effective" humanitarian planning?

The pain of those Israelis who oppose this horrific onslaught is as
palpable as that of the Palestinians trapped in Gaza. "We are darkening
the world of a million and a half human beings and destroying it," columnist Yossi Sarid wrote in Ha'aretz.
"We are dropping featherweight notices and a ton of a bomb ... The begetter of all this will no longer boast of
the-most-moral-army-in-the-world."