Israel air offensive against the Palestinian militant group Hamas

In the first three days of its air offensive against the Palestinian militant group Hamas — to which Islamic Jihad is affiliated — the Israeli Defence Force struck more than 780 targets in Gaza, including leaders of the organisation, rocket-launchers and missiles which had been deliberately hidden among the territory’s civilian population.

A bombed-out building in the Gaza city of Khan Yunis. The Palestinian health ministry claimed 70 per cent of casualties were civilians, many women and children

Meanwhile, Hamas has been firing hundreds of its own rockets at Israel from shifting launch-sites in the Gaza Strip.

But what makes this latest outbreak so terrifying in the endless tragedy of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the extraordinary intensity of both the provocation from Hamas, and the response from Israel.

Hamas, for the first time in years, has been targeting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. As a result, nearly three million people in these cities were forced into bomb-shelters during that very same World Cup semi-final.

In the past week, Hamas rockets have also been fired at targets as far away as Hadera and Haifa in northern Israel, and at the heavily-protected Dimona plant where Israel’s nuclear warheads are made.

Hamas, for the first time in years, has been targeting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, forcing huge numbers to take refuge. Pictured, Israelis take cover in an underground car park

Hamas’s military wing, the Army of Al-Qassam, has only been able to display such ambition because it has recently added a formidable new weapon to its armoury of more than 11,000 missiles — a clutch of Syrian-made M-302 rockets with a range of 100 miles.

Before now, the maximum range of their rockets had been in the region of 50 miles.

But with this dramatic escalation in Hamas’s ability to strike deep into Israel, the Israeli Defence Force is threatening a ground invasion of Gaza.

It is no understatement to say that the inevitable bloodshed and carnage that would follow such a development could inflame tensions throughout the Middle East, especially if Hamas manages to incite a general Palestinian uprising.

Ever since the Israeli state was created in 1948, and carved out of land that used to be Palestine, there has always been a sense of grievance among Palestinian Arabs, many of whom were dispossessed when Jewish settlers moved in.

Although 1.7 million Palestinian Arabs still live in Israel, huge numbers left their land and moved to Gaza — a strip of territory 25 miles long by seven miles at its widest — which is now home to 1.5 million people and one of the most densely crowded areas on Earth.

Whatever the rights and wrongs — and there are wrongs on both sides — it is perhaps understandable that their descendants feel resentment towards Israelis who live on land they believe is rightfully theirs.

This resentment has resulted in continual attacks on Israel by Palestinians, and the latest cycle of violence started after Hamas kidnapped three Israeli schoolboys on June 12,2014 in a bid to boost its popularity among Israeli-hating Palestinians in the run-up to elections in less than six months time.

The militant group coldly murdered its teenage captives — possibly in panic after discovering they were not Israeli soldiers who could be used as bargaining chips to swap for released Hamas prisoners.

The discovery of the boys’ bodies 19 days later shocked the Israeli nation to the core.

Even President Mahmoud Abbas, who governs the Palestinian Authority in coalition with Hamas, reluctantly condemned the atrocity — although cynics said this was to ensure continued U.S. and EU financial aid. 

But a terrifying insight into the dark savagery of the passions involved came from the Palestinian media which described the killings as a ‘masterstroke’, depicting the three boys as rats hanging from hooks with Stars of David around their necks.

The deaths were also greeted with whoops of joy by ordinary Palestinians, many of whom provocatively held up three fingers to triumphantly symbolise the three victims. In swift retribution, Israeli vigilantes kidnapped a Palestinian teenager and killed him. He was almost certainly burnt alive, for soot was found in his throat and lungs.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the funeral of three Israeli schoolboys abducted and killed by Hamas. He has vowed to catch the killers