Halt The Fighting

Hamas and Egypt in consultation with one another claim to be in control of the situation, they are negotiating with the two terror groups who have been sending deadly rockets into Israel. Hamas adds, however, that there will be no cease-fire until Israel calls back the IDF and ceases bombing Gaza. The impression to be left is that Israel precipitated the violence and the Palestinian militias are simply responding, in self-defence.

Israel's deputy ambassador to the UN, Haim Waxman, has forwarded a formal complaint to UN Secretary Genera Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council that the Council must condemn the continual firing of Kassam and Grad missiles into Israel by Palestinian terror groups. The United Nations and the European Union have condemned Israel's response to the ongoing barrage of rockets from Gaza, so there's perspective and perception in one fell, foul swoop.

"Many people have suffered from shock and tens of thousands of children remained at home so we can ensure their safety. Israel's citizens are living under threat and danger. The constant firing dramatically affects the daily lives of more than one million Israeli citizens", Waxman wrote in this letter. Obviously what he described was nowhere near dramatic enough to move the opinion of those he meant to alert to the situation.

One of those missiles just happened to have struck the courtyard of an empty school. Another struck and damaged fifteen houses in Be'er Sheva, where the city had ordered all schools to be closed in the face of the endless rocket attacks.

Previously, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, had written to Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council, expressing his country's frustration with their lack of concern. "How long will you continue to be silent. Ten days, ten rockets, and not one condemnation", he wrote back in February.

This, after all, is the same Gaza where the previous Israeli government had acceded to US and EU promises to monitor and prevent the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza, to convince Israel to end the December 2008 Operation Cast Lead response to unending rocket attacks from Gaza. European observers were not interested in taking up positions in the area because of the dangers involved.

Israel is continuing its air assaults on Gazan terrorist strongholds. Including an Islamic Jihad weapons storage centre located in a civilian enclave. "There have been civilian injuries. This is what happens when Islamic Jihad deploys in civilian population areas." But this is a specialty of the Palestinians, to create a backlash of international opinion, when Israel strikes back at weapons depots where rockets have been deployed in crowded civilian areas.

The twelve-year-old Palestinian boy who was killed represents an inadvertent death; he approached a rocket launching site which had been targeted as a terrorist cell.

Barzeli Hospital in Ashkelon has evacuated its child and female patients to bomb shelters, sending as many of its other patients home as possible, as the bombardment continues. Gedara, at the southern edge of metropolitan Tel Aviv, came under attack; there are not enough Iron Dome systems to protect all of southern Israel.

The Palestinian Authority has asked the United Nations to condemn Israel's actions, terming them "violence, terror ... [and] crimes against the Palestinian people". The Egyptian ambassador to the Palestinian Authority is attempting to "halt hostilities". Ambassador, Yasser Othman, has stated that Israel's offensive is "unjustifiable", "a breach to the truce sponsored by Egypt".

While Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, felt that his movement has reason to be bitterly disappointed with international efforts to halt the fighting.