Sensible words on the war in Gaza...

Sir Jeremy Greenstock Former UK Ambassador To The United Nations, writing in Daily Mirror on the current war in Gaza:

The tragedy of the situation in Gaza is that this terrible outbreak of violence was never necessary in the first place.

Last summer, Hamas initiated and accepted the terms of a six-month ceasefire between them and Israel.

Israel agreed to open up the border crossings if rockets ceased to land on Israeli towns. The rockets stopped for five months but the crossings did not open. Gaza became a prison for its inhabitants, one without food or medicine.

On November 4, Israel sent tanks in to prevent the use of smuggling tunnels, killing Palestinians.

The ceasefire nevertheless continued, but was not renewed by Hamas in December - they saw no chance of the crossings being opened. An arrangement would have been possible at that point - if only the Israelis were prepared to allow much-needed food, fuel and medicine into Gaza.

But talks which could have led to that were shattered by Israel's air campaign.

For two years I have been with an organisation which is trying to encourage Hamas to see their rejection of the Israeli occupation as a political rather than a military campaign.

The potential for a diplomatic solution has never been explored. It is too convenient for Jerusalem and Washington to label Hamas a terror organisation and shoot from a distance.

Hamas is a grievance-based political organisation with Islamic credentials, which is committed to freeing Palestine from the Israeli occupation. They are capable, in time, of accepting a two-state solution.

Hamas won the fair and open election in Palestine in 2006.

They won because the people thought Fatah, the party of the rejected government, had failed them. Fatah had not achieved a Palestinian state, despite renouncing violence and recognising Israel. This is crucial to understanding Hamas - they won't recognise Israel until sure of the world's commitment to a just solution to the Palestine issue.

Hamas are not the creatures of Iran but they will accept money and arms from Tehran in the absence of any other source of support.

Adversaries of al-Qaeda, they are in no way interested in setting up a "Taliban-style" government.

Hamas are wrong to target Israeli civilians but no solution is possible unless they are involved.

The only way for Israel to achieve security is to get to political grips with its enemy.

It is way past the time for the shooting to stop and the talking to start.

The potential for a diplomatic solution has never been explored.

It is too convenient to label Hamas a terror organisation and shoot from a distance.

UN SAYS ISRAELIS PUT PALESTINIANS IN 'SAFE' HOUSE...THEN BOMBED IT

THE UNITED NATIONS SAYS ISRAELI TROOPS EVACUATED MORE THAN 100 PALESTINIANS TO A HOUSE, WARNING THEM TO STAY INDOORS. THE HOUSE WAS LATER BOMBED BY THE ISRAELIS. 30 DEAD.

Just another day of carnage in the war of the children.

World outrage as almost one Israeli a day dies in Gaza conflict...

* The Times produces photographic evidence that the Israelis have been causing horrific injuries by raining white phosporous shells on civilians in Gaza - in breach of international laws, HEREand HERE...

* The United Nations suspends humanitarian operations in Gaza after two of their aid workers were killed in an Israeli rocket attack...

* The New York Times reports that the normally conservative International Red Cross issues a scathing condemnation of Israel for failing its obligations under international law to care for the wounded in a war-zone. Here's how the main ABC network in the United States reports the story, hopefully waking up the American public to the horror resulting in pressure on Condi Rice and George W. Bush to push Israel to make peace, rather than continue to give them the nod to bomb Gaza. (Israel has still not agreed to a ceasefire, but I expect they want at least another day of bombarding Gaza and in the face of mounting condemnation will agree to a ceasefire round late tomorrow or Saturday).

* The Canadian Government has the balls to blame Israel for the deaths of 40 - including many children - when they shelled a school being used by Gaza families trying to shelter from the Israeli attacks.

* UN figures reveal that 257 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli acrtion in the past fortnight and more than 1,000 children injured. Newsnight reports that 750 people have died in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive compared to just 11 Israelis.

Just another day of carnage in the war of the children in Gaza.

Israel's smug response after bombing THREE schools...

Yesterday, I asked how many more innocents would have to die in the Gaza conflict that has become the war of the children.

Today, Israeli forces provide the answer: many more. In the face of growing world condemnation, Israel attempted to justify bombing not one, but THREE Gaza schools in one day.

In the most horrific carnage, more than 30 people died when they attacked a UNITED NATIONS school.

The school was being used by Gazans trying to shelter from the rockets and shells raining in from land, sea and air onto one of the most densely populated patches on earth.

Many of the victims were children, as you might expect in the shelling of a school.

The Israelis claimed mortars were fired from the school and that totally justified their actions. The UN say they have no evidence that mortars were fired from the school.

I thought the Israeli PM's spokesman Mark Regey make an astonishing admission when questioned by the media.

He said Israeli forces were not to know that there might be 'civilians' inside the school.

Unbelievable.

But worse was to come from Israeli Internal Security Minister Meir Shitreet.

His smiled smugly throughout his Newsnight interview with Mark Urban.

When the horror of the school attack was put to him, the apparently uncaring Mr Shitreet responded with two words:

'So what?'

Is that totally sickening or what?

War of the children as Israel kills more...

Israel killed at least 14 more children in Gaza yesterday.

Three children and their mother died after a tank shell destroyed their house in the eastern part of Gaza City.

Two more children were killed in artillery salvos from the Israel's Navy.

Among the other deaths yesterday were seven members of the same family killed when Israeli forces attacked a Palestinian refugee camp.

No surprise then that Unicef confirmed yesterday that children in Gaza are bearing the brunt of the conflict.

Gaza's hospitals are said to be overwhelmed with hundreds of casualties.

Meanwhile, the Geneva based International Committee of the Red Cross warned last night that people in Gaza are dying because Israeli shelling is preventing ambulances reaching the wounded.

The Red Cross said two Gaza hospitals had run out of fuel for their generators, and 45 wells across Gaza were out of action after they were hit in Israeli air-strikes - threatening water supplies to a third of the population.

Aid agencies warned that hospitals had been damaged and that Gaza desperately needs food to feed its people - and body bags to bury its dead.

Reuters reports the Palestinian Red Crescent saying amid the fighting, a pregnant woman had to be taken to hospital on a donkey cart but didn't make it in time. The baby was still born and the woman suffered a ruptured uterus.

But perhaps the most depressing news of the day was that the United States blocked a call at the United Nations for a cease-fire.

Meanwhile, Hamas continues to chuck rockets into Israel. But the casualty figures still highlight Israel's horrifically disproportiate response.

Accurate casualty figures are difficult in any war, but in this one, Israel has managed to prevent the world's media from witnessing what they are doing in Gaza.

The number of Israelis to die since they excalated the conflict has yet to reach double figures - ie, under ten, including three of their soldiers reported killed last night.

But it is clear that more than 500 Palestinians have died since Israel escalated the conflict, including many children and other civilians - as well as some Hamas fighters.

It is the innocents who are paying the biggest price.

How many more babies and children will have to be killed or maimed for life before this carnage is stopped...?

Gaza is fast becoming the war of the children.

British Bulldog Brown wins world backing...

Gordon Brown has won world backing to launch a massive international peace-keeping force to end what he believes is the greatest humanitarian disaster the world faces today.

Our new Prime Minister is on his way home from New York after notching up what pundits describe as a dramatic first foreign policy victory to help end the bloodshed in Darfur.

He used his first face-to-face meeting with George Bush since becoming Prime Minister, to secure the crucial support of the American President for a United Nations mandate to deploy 26,000 UN troops to Darfur, to stop the massacres of civilians and end a year of international drift on the carnage.

Gordon Brown had promoted the idea last week when he met French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr Brown went to UN HQ in New York hours before the vote to call for support for the resolution.

His diplomacy paid off last night when the Security Council approved the troop deployment. New UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said the decision was historic and unprecedented.

A Washington Post headline on his meeting with George Bush described the British prime minister as more bulldog than poodle.