“The attack comes shortly before a key meeting this Sunday in Cairo when Hamas and its political rival Fatah will hold talks on reconciling their differences and creating a single, unified government. It will be the first time the two sides have met at this level since fighting a near civil war more than a year ago.

“Until now it had appeared both Israel and Hamas, which seized full control of Gaza last summer, had an interest in maintaining the ceasefire. For Israel it has meant an end to the daily barrage of rockets landing in southern towns, particularly Sderot. For Gazans it has meant an end to the regular Israeli military raids that have caused hundreds of casualties, many of them civilian, in the past year. Israel, however, has maintained its economic blockade on the strip, severely limiting imports and preventing all exports from Gaza.

“Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, had personally approved the Gaza raid, the Associated Press said. The Israeli military concluded that Hamas was likely to want to continue the ceasefire despite the raid, it said. The ceasefire was due to run for six months and it is still unclear whether it will stretch beyond that limit.”

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Well we now know what Israel was cooking up during the ceasefire months, and I’d like to hear from anyone who thinks that the November raid was anything but a provocation designed to bring about this evil war.

Israel learnt a lot from their most recent Lebanon debacle, but so did Hezbollah, and they are far too strong, militarily and politically, to be pushed around. Hamas is almost completely isolated, with nowhere to run and no way to resupply.

Israel is conducting a virtual rerun of 2006, but this time it has carefully stacked the deck in its favour. Maybe when this operation inevitably fails its objectives the Jewish state can dream up some other way to redeem itself.