This is likely to become the defining event of this "war"

Israeli forces order 49 members of a family into a house for "safety" - and then start firing both shells and missiles at it.



All these claims were repeated as fact by Channel 4 News this evening (and are corroborated by UN and Red Cross sources). Israel says "it has no documentation of this event."

I'll just repeat my earlier analogy: Suppose that after a few IRA attacks leaving 11 Brits dead, the British Government invaded Catholic areas of Northern Ireland with tanks and air strikes, seeking out IRA members and arms caches, but bulldozing entire villages, making 50,000 people homeless, and killing over a thousand innocent Catholic by-standers in the process. What would have been the world's opinion about that? And would this military action have been constructive, do you think?

One way or another, if there is to be peace, Israel will have to talk to Hamas. Just as the British Government talked to the IRA.