Gaza children cannot escape as Israel mounts its bloodiest attack in months

The inevitable round of mud slinging has started over the news that the Israelis have killed eighteen Palestinians most of them women and children from the same family.

The Israeli Defence Forces said they had been launching "preventative" shelling in response to Qassam rocket attacks after the Israeli troops' withdrawal from Beit Hanoun on Tuesday. No injuries were reported from the rocket attacks. The IDF said it "regrets any event in which uninvolved [people] are hurt" while insisting that the "responsibility for civilian casualties" lay with factions who launched Qassam rockets " from the shelter of populated areas".

There are several things to be said about this. No-one disputes that the rocket fire from the Occupied territories should cease. However, this rocket fire has resulted in eleven deaths in the past four years and not a single death since August 2005.

In order to stop this rocket fire the Israelis have been bombarding the Gaza Strip and have killed more than THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY people in the last FOUR MONTHS.

This is not an appropriate response. The Guardian leader today puts the matter succinctly:

But Israel's actions, as in Lebanon this summer, have ignored the obligation to act in proportion to the threat, to avoid civilian casualties, and comply with international humanitarian law, which includes the personal responsibility of commanders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Louise Arbour, the UN human rights commissioner, should formally remind the Israeli government of those principles when she visits Gaza and Jerusalem shortly.

This violence is not only a terrible reminder of the dangers of deadlock in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It also deepens the crisis further by bringing an unnecessary suspension of talks between Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas on the formation of a national unity government, needed to prompt the US and EU to ease their sanctions and end the debilitating siege of more than a million Gazans. It is hard too in this atmosphere to see progress in negotiations on the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas. It bears repeating that there are no military solutions to this conflict. Those who ignore that will always end up staining their hands with the blood of innocents.

There are now calls for Hamas to resume suicide bombing. And, given the present climate, could anyone genuinely be surprised were they to resume?

Since the election of Hamas the US and EU have imposed sanctions on the people of Palestine and since the kidnap of Gilad Shalit, the Israelis have been pounding Gaza almost mercilessly.

Hamas recently offered a ten year ceasefire as away of breaking the impasse over its refusal to recognise the state of Israel. This offer should be taken seriously.

Ahmad Yousef, senior adviser to the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, in an interview with the Guardian said, "We hope the Europeans will become aware of the concept of hudna, and that it can become a substitute for recognition of Israel," said Mr Yousef.

"Debate about a political nation's right to exist seems infantile. Israel is a state now, it is part of the UN, it is de facto there, and we deal with it every day."

He also pointed out that European and American politicians are ignoring the difficulty in any member of Hamas openly recognising the state of Israel:

Mr Yousef said that there was no support in Gaza and the West Bank for recognition of Israel, and he could not propose such a change at present.

"If I did, I would end up like Michael Collins," he said, referring to the Irish republican leader assassinated in 1922 for accepting an Irish two-state solution.

"We need to change people's minds on how they look at the conflict, and it will take time. The climate will change if we have a period of peace."

We are not being reasonable in assuming that Israel's bombardment of the Gazan's or it's continual presence in the West Bank has left the Palestinian people more eager than before to accept publicly the state of Israel. The very idea is nonsensical.

Since the election of Hamas the west has behaved in a way that is counterproductive and dumb.

Indeed, by standing on the sidelines and refusing to condemn Israel's "preventative" shelling we are actively encouraging an escalation in the violence. Of course, were the Palestinians were to respond we would quickly condemn this whilst simultaneously having nothing to say about Israel's present actions which we allow them to frame as "preventative".

Israel and her supporters can come up with any number of ways to dismiss the deaths of those innocents yesterday, but the lack of any real attempt to negotiate with the people that the Palestinians have elected as their representatives is a betrayal of our supposed belief in democracy.

We might not agree with Hamas, but that's simply tough. They represent the Palestinians and surely talking to them is better than the alternative that we are flirting with?

And events like yesterday make the Israelis less safe, not more so. It is a dumb policy we are pursuing, it is also a deeply immoral one.

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tag: Israel, Palestine, Road Map, Lebanon, Gilad Shalit, Gaza Strip, rocket attacks, IDF, Israeli incursions, operation, West Bank