Sorry misunderstood you there Darvi. was too quick to jump.
GrizzlyAdamz - those are tank shells. and btw, it is not a prohibited weapon by the international treaty of 1995.
I agree with this. Both sides are utter bastards and anybody claiming otherwise has some major dissonance going on.
I agree that both sides can be equally vicious, but i disagree about the equal responsibility. the question of intention and motive is an important one and can't be overlooked. so long as hamas ultimate goal is to eradicate israel and form a caliphate in its place, their responsibility is far higher.
(Mind you, Israel actually uses Palestinians as human shields, chaining them to the front of their vehicles and whatnot, so maybe that's the disconnect. Can you imagine the outcry if the Palestinians managed to use some actual Israeli's as human shields the way the Israeli's do?)
The use of palestinians human shield is not chaining them to vehicles and what not, it WAS about letting the owner of the house or his neighbour to enter the house first. this tactic was deemed illegal by the israeli high court of law and is now frowned upon and whoever does that and gets reported, will and shall face trials and get thrown to jail.
The "problem" is that despite every best intentions of the israeli state and the IDF, the soldiers on the ground act on their own accord and sadly, many time palestinians don't report them because they don't know they can. one time in gaza i had to fight a group of infantry soldiers who "abused' a palestinian teen that just wanted to come to israel to work. the thing is, the specific orders is to detain those teens, give them food and water and bring them to the Shin Bet for questioning to see why they ran away and what information they can provide, through peaceful measures. you are not allowed to touch them or even speak to them. that group of soldiers previously lost a couple of friends in a raid on their outpost, so they lost control. that said, i didn't save his life or anything because their abuse was limited to casual slaps and not severe beatings. that's just one example of how israeli soldiers, by the virtue of being human beings for good and worse, sometime defy the high morales that is expected from them by their commanders.
The difference being is that while civilian casualties is considered a failure from israeli perspective, it is deemed a success from hamas perspective.
And the question of acceptance of a longer cease fire is not a question hamas can answer, since its Qatar and Turkey that direct its moves.