Day 20 - Israel defending herself

A brief update of events on the 20th Day of the War – 1.15.09:

On a day in which 22 rockets were fired into Israel, Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry's military-political department is meeting in Egypt as that country attempts to broker a cease fire between Israel and Hamas. It is reported that one of the conditions required by Israel is that the cease fire be permanent and not limited to one year as Hamas has reportedly offered. There are reports that the Israel cabinet will meet tomorrow in order to announce whether it will agree to a cease fire.

At the moment, IDF Givati ground forces are still operating near Gaza city. The difficult pictures that will be shown around the world are those of the UNRWA headquarters, the Al Quds Hospital and a building housing foreign press services in Gaza city, having been hit by Israeli artillery. The context within which these incidents have occurred is that Hamas gunmen operating from all 3 of these structures were firing rocket-propelled grenades at Givati forces. In performing their function as back-up protection for the ground forces, IDF artillery forces returned fire at the source. There is no international convention that prohibits an army from firing on any target, no matter what it might be, when it is the origination point of hostile fire during wartime. All the same, Israelis, like all civilized people are happy to know that at the moment there have been no reports of any civilian casualties at these sites.