Beit Hanoun

As people slept in their beds in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Beit Hanoun, teenage Israeli soldiers loaded their tanks, turned their turrets towards the center of town and let loose a barrage of shells.

This morning 18 to 20 people, half of whom were children, were blown apart as they slept. Their extended family - mostly women - were also killed and dozens injured.

Now Hamas is claiming that it will resume Suicide Bombings within Israel. All because Israel has decided that the inconvenience of rockets being fired from Gaza into southern Israel merited a response of serial massacres of civilians. Instead of pursuing peace: by dismantling the Apartheid Wall that has ruined thousands of lives in the West Bank and by withdrawing from the Occupied Territories (instead of expanding it's settlements there, murdering Palestinians, and stealing their land) Israel has chosen violence and war. A war it cannot win.

While it saddens me that Hamas [Islamic Jihad has carried out the occasional suicide bombing in Israel during Hamas' official and unofficial cease-fire(s)] has chosen to do this, I doesn't surprise me. Let me review a few of the events that have happened in the past six months that has led to this decision:

- Eight members of a family, three of whom were children, are blown apart by a mortar shell while picnicking on a Gaza beach in June.

- A Family of nine were killed when the Israeli Air Force dropped a 225kg bomb on a residential building at 6 in the morning. July 13th (see Post from this date)

- and today, 20 killed by intentional tank shelling of a residential complex. BBC reports that most were "women and children".

And we are again reminded of the question posed by Dr. Eyad el-Sarraj, the Gazan psychiatrist, outspoken opponent of suicide bombings and winner of the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders: Given the conditions in which the Palestinian people must live the question is not "why are there suicide bombers" but "why is not every Palestinian a suicide bomber"?

From BBC reporter Matthew Price:

A father of one child who was killed told me: "One missile I believe could have been a mistake, but the number of missiles that were fired, I can't believe that was a mistake."

A resident who works in one of Gaza's hospitals says: "I have not seen injuries like this for a long time."

"The shrapnel severed peoples hands and arms and they were left lying on the ground," Dr Ali said.

He had been sleeping in his bedroom when the shells struck the next door building. The windows of his bedroom had been blasted out and there was glass on the ground.

Dr Ali tells the same story as everyone I spoke to, that there had been no anti-Israeli attacks by Palestinian militants from this area, as the Israeli military claims, before the shells struck.

"I am angry. I hate the US, I hate George W Bush, I hate of course Israel. I also hate the Arab states which do nothing to help and the international community," said Raed. But it was not anger in his eyes, it was more like an immense sadness that showed through.

That mood was shared by most of the people we saw, many of them slumped tearfully against walls in the street. Normally when something like this happens members of armed groups turn up and chant slogans with their loudspeakers.

But this time we only saw one militant appear, and he quickly vanished again.