For month Israel blocked the Gaza Strip from nearly any supply. No paper for schoolbooks, too little fuel, only little medical stuff. On November 5 it broke the truce [corrected] Hamas had held for nearly five month.

That truce officially ended a few days ago and Hamas as well as other groups started to again to launch ineffective homemade rockets onto Israeli ground.

Yesterday Israel let some 80 trucks with supplies into Gaza. That was not to get relief to 1.5 million prisoners there, but to prepare for the onslaught that started today. Too little supplies in Gaza would let too many people call for a 'premature' stop of the ongoing war against the Palestinian people there.

The first day of a brutal bombing campaign killed at least 195 people, all of them 'militants' and Hamas 'extremists' we are told.

The killing will go on for at least a week and more likely up to February 10 when Israel holds elections. Every politician in Israel seems to run a 'I will hit 'em harder' campaign. This is totally useless violence for the most cynic reason I can think of – to boast the personal egos of Livni, Barak and Netanjahu.