I just finished watching an online clip of CNN's reporting on the Israeli rocket attack on the UNRWA shelter in the town of Beit Hanoun in the very northeast corner of the Gaza Strip. About 17 people were killed and around 200 wounded. The scene of medics carrying the wounded out of the UN School which has been in use as a shelter is heartbreaking especially scenes of very young children on stretchers most seriously wounded and maimed. This horrific scene cannot but instill shame and grief in the hearts of those who are in the least bit supportive of the Jewish State. The IDF has claimed, with UN confirmation, that Hamas artillery shells have also landed in the area around the school but it is mostly Israel rocket fire that has caused the damage and loss of life and limb.
True, Hamas has long used UN schools and hospitals as weapons depots and sites from which to launch rocket attacks against Israel. The UN has confirmed this as well with General Secretary Ban Ki Moon confirming reports of Hamas rockets recently found in UN run schools in the Gaza Strip. The fact that Hamas uses much of the Gaza population as human shields doesn't absolve Israel of its responsibility to avoid firing in heavily populated areas. And the important thing to remember is that there is no military solution to this conflict; Israel is just as mistaken today in believing that it can destroy Hamas by force as it was thirty years ago in thinking that it could destroy Yassir Arafat and the PLO.