At least 600 Palestinians are dead for 30ish Israelis, that isn't proportionate.
Israel have a arguable right to a ground invasion and to strike Hamas targets but bombing a hospital is a war crime. If Germany bombed a French hospital, what do you think the reaction would be? Or if Russia bombed Ukranian hospitals?

The dead children paraded on TV are not mannequins, they are people's children.
The acts of the Israeli state are despicable and it is a damned shame that the US/UK/UN are not ordering Israel to immediately cease bombing civilians or risk being invaded but I guess this is what happens when you allow a fledgling state with a history of terrorism to become a nuclear power.

And the 30 Israelis are soldiers, not civilians. Israel does nothing but target civilians.

Forget cultural similarities, this is just one Middle-Eastern country bombing the shit out of another. We didn't tolerate when Saddam did it to the Kuwaitis or the Kurds, so why tolerate it now? I guess the IR lesson for dictators is get nukes then you can do what you want, and it also helps if you have Facebook squadrons spreading propaganda.

Huh, people still hate the Jews. Good to know that didn't end in 1945. Hooray.

Excuse me? I don't hate Jews.
However you might be surprised to know that Jews hated "you" in the past, with Zionist terrorists bombing British occupying forces who were trying to maintain peace in Palestine.

There are a lot of Jews who share my opinion of the Israeli government.

Anybody who disapproves of bombing hospitals naturally hates Jews, duh.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/middle-east-unrest/dad-relives-israeli-strike-gaza-wiped-out-his-family-n163091

So I don't get this. Israel tells people to move to the city center away from the areas they're shelling, then produces to shell the areas they tell people to move to. Doesn't exactly sound like they're concerned with hitting specifically military targets anymore.

Were they ever?

"We didn't tolerate when Saddam did it to the Kuwaitis or the Kurds, so why tolerate it now?"

Did the Kuwaitis or Kurds fire more than 2,000 rockets at Saddam...while declaring it'd do whatever it could to destroy Iraq and kill men, women and children alike?

And Hamas continues to refuse a ceasefire...

They've been presented multiple times now, but insist on holding out.

I guess political objects are more important than human lives...

And I've yet to hear one word against Egypt.

Egypt, Egypt, Egypt...

Egypt is the other player in this...and is also wholly against Hamas...

But we won't acknowledge Gaza's other neighbor has severe qualms with Hamas Hamas Hamas...no...it's just Israel that has a problem, of course.

"So I don't get this. Israel tells people to move to the city center away from the areas they're shelling, then produces to shell the areas they tell people to move to. Doesn't exactly sound like they're concerned with hitting specifically military targets anymore."

We already covered this, Chairman--the UN confirming twice, in just this week, that Hamas had moved rockets to those safe zones, and that areas such as Wafa Hospital, which were to be safe zones, also experienced Hamas fire.

If Hamas stores weapons in or fires from a safe zone...it ceases to become safe, yes?

Then the onus is on Hamas NOT TO DO THAT.

And the UN has independently confirmed that they've done it repeatedly this week.

You CANNOT tell the Israelis not to shoot at a target that's storing weapons for Hamas or is housing Hamas militants who are shooting back at Israel. That's simply not fair, to tell one side they can't fire while allowing the other side to us UN facilities as cover and a storage center...

Hamas needs to stop using those areas for storage and cover if they want them to remain safe zones.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/world/middleeast/israel-says-hamas-is-using-civilians-as-shields-in-gaza.html

"“Hamas knows that it works to its advantage, politically and diplomatically, as the civilian death toll mounts, there is increasing pressure to end the war immediately, and what that typically entails, if past is precedent, is making some concessions to Hamas,” said Nathan Thrall, co-author of a recent International Crisis Group report on Gaza. “Hamas deliberately buries the weapons in populated civilian areas hoping that will reduce the chance that those weapons will be taken out from the air — that’s a pretty clear-cut case.”"

Get a job as a diplomat if you're all so knowledgeable in the subject. Sometimes this forum sucks.

Israel invades Gaza, yet Obi wants to talk about Egypt? Egypt isn't the nation invading Gaza.

I'm talking about Egypt in relation to the refugee crisis, as Egypt closing their borders is part of the reason there are few places to go...and Egypt is part of the blockade Hamas wants lifted and Egypt doesn't want to because they, too, hate Hamas...and Egypt was trying to broker a ceasefire...

Yeah, I'd say Egypt matters in this, too.

Apparently Hamas are to blame for 15 more innocent people dying today in a UN run school, with another 200 injured ...... well that is what the potential war criminal Netanyahu is telling us. Bad Hamas, killing all these Palestinian residents !!
Hope the US public are getting good value for their tax dollars that have funded the Israeli war machine, when is the next shipment of arms going, I think the supplies must be running a bit low by now. How much death and destruction will it take for that funding tap to be turned off .... only kidding, we know they won't stop giving !!

^Oh, give me a break, Nigee...

If that were an Israeli rocket, you'd be up in arms about it hitting the UN school!

If it's a Hamas rocket...well, then that's the time for you to be sarcastic and dismissive, clearly...

And Hamas is resisting John Kerry's two-phase plan for a ceasefire...

They demand all or nothing.

...Because that's gone well for the Palestinians in the past, right? No, don't accept compromise...don't share the land via a partition plan...go all or nothing...

That worked out so well in 1947, right?

Why not take that same absolutist approach, it's done so much good for Palestinians the last 67 years!

I will never manage to adequately emphasize how important letting go of the past is for establishing a meaningful peace.

Likewise, demonstrating that both sides have considerable ability to make life hard on each other should likewise be taken as granted.

Israeli-militants and Anti-israeli-militants have historically been unkind to each other.

The above points should be pretty well established and further discussing or reviewing them, in the context of a peace settlement, is unhelpful. Moreover, neither side can pretend to decry to bad behavior of the other without committing fully to a peace process.

Moderates will be essential to building a meaningful peace and so they must be given a meaningful voice. The same people who would be good for manning a military bunker will not be the best for creating a framework for mutual well-being and cooperation.

And once AGAIN CNN reporting that Israel's ready to stop, but Hamas continues to reject offers, so much now that they're desperate to find ANYONE who can get Hamas to stop and accept a ceasefire.

Beyond the positive PR image they create internationally for Israel (which I imagine is the primary goal), Israel's "cease fire proposals" are nothing less than a demand for unconditional surrender and the occupation of a Palestinian people who face death, exile, expropriation of property, and/or enslavement under Israeli rule. Of course they refuse. So would anyone.

And Hamas makes the unreasonable demand of getting everything they've asked for...as a result of terror actions.

And yes--no conditions for a ceasefire...just stop firing. Why should Hamas be rewarded for starting a shooting war and rocketing Israeli civilians?

If they are truly interested in the cause of peace, would they not take it no matter what? If the situation in Gaza is so bad that no peace means dozens die each day and hundreds are wounded, would not even a brief, humanitarian ceasefire be OK...

Or must ANY ceasefire involve Hamas stamping its fet and throwing a terror-fueled tantrum until it gets its way?

And if you do give into them this time, and do concede those points...

What's the incentive for Hamas to not simply do this again?

Who needs diplomacy when you can just rocket cities, use safe zones as rocket storage centers, and wait out public opinion and let the body count pile and pile until you get your bloody-soaked way?

Rewarding these actions with concessions is to reward wrongdoing.

And last I checked, Gazans are under Hamas rule.

They elected them.

If they don't like Israel as a neighbor--tough. Israel's not going anywhere.

Perhaps they should look inwardly and at their own party's deficiencies and ask themselves if a blood-soaked "resistance" to ceasefires and negotiations and to Israel's very existence is really worth it.

Obi wan one day maybe on your death-bed, you're going to realise you were wrong not about individual points just wrong in the moral sense of the word.

@ obiwanobiwan: "...use safe zones as rocket storage centers..."

I'm sorry if this has been dealth with fully already, but with six threads in the past week it's hard to keep track.... So, is there any actual proof for the claim that Hamas is storing munitions in schools and hospitals? I know it's been claimed by Israel but is there any evidence? The director of the hospital bombed by Israel a few days ago was interviewed on BBC radio earlier this evening, and stated in no uncertain terms that Israel was lying and there had never been any munitions in his hospital. Well, except for the bombs that Israel dropped on it, of course... As for the UN school that was attacked today with yet more innocent loss of life, again is there proof that the UN was allowing Hamas weapons to be stored there?

I HOPE I go to my deathbed not making excuses for or acceding to a terrorist regime that pledges to do everything it can to destroy the 7 million people of Israel.

I'm sorry that Hamas can apparently do no wrong for you guys...

Somehow, I just can't find that warmth in my heart for an internationally-recognized and condemned terrorist syndicate.

"I'm sorry if this has been dealth with fully already, but with six threads in the past week it's hard to keep track.... So, is there any actual proof for the claim that Hamas is storing munitions in schools and hospitals?"

Yes.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/for-second-time-rockets-found-at-un-school-in-gaza/

If the Times of Israel won't suffice, another source--

http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/07/hamas-rockets-found-in-second-united-nations-school/374874/