Gaza Update: Israel Says No to Restraint

Prime Minister Olmert "slammed international calls for restraint by IDF forces in Gaza" during today's Israeli Cabinet meeting:

"For many years we've demonstrated restraint. We reined our reactions. We bit our lips and took barrage after barrage," said Olmert ...

Olmert called the war "an unprecedented national effort that restored the spirit of unity to the nation..."

Restraint was certainly not in evidence as Israeli forces entered Gaza City itself in a new escalation of the ground war. Israeli bombs also hit across the Gaza border in Egypt hurting two policemen and two children. Egyptian sources say that there is talk of more injured.

In Gaza itself, conditions are desperate. The WHO stated 4 days ago that "health services in Gaza, already depleted and fragile, are on the point of collapse if steps to support and protect them are not taken immediately" yet no relief is in sight. They note that there "is now a serious risk of outbreaks of communicable disease, such as acute respiratory infections, measles and acute watery diarrhoea, all of which have potential for high mortality among children." As markfromireland wrote in pointing to this report, "there's all sorts of things that kill the vulnerable during a war."

The ICRC (Red Cross/Red Crescent) notes in their latest Operational Update that ...