Gaza Update: 'Closed Military Zone'

Overnight, the BBC is reporting that Israel has declared the region around Gaza "a closed military zone," which is seen as sign that a ground invasion is about to begin (no link available yet). The Gaza death toll (at 1:25 p.m. PST) is 307, there are unconfirmed reports that captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was among those wounded by the Israeli attack on Gaza, and the Israeli navy has now joined the attack.

The Israeli air force is apparently very happy with the performance of a "new bunker-buster missile that it received recently from the United States" (Israel ordered 1,000  GBU-39 in September) and while "Col. Moshe Levy was interviewed by several Arab news outlets during which he stressed that Israel was not against the Palestinian public in Gaza but was operating against Hamas":

Defense officials said Sunday that Israel would, however, not hesitate to target the homes of civilians who protected Hamas terrorists throughout the operation.

While sorting through Gaza news last night, I ran across three essays worth reading. Two were published today in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, the last one, by Nir Rosen, appeared in the Guardian.

In the first, Amira Hass explains that the Gaza strike is not against Hamas, it's against all Palestinians: