You say Hamas does not respond to the offer of talks. When was such an offer made and by whom was it made? Is it not a fact that all concerned have so far refused to talk to Hamas?

Further, Hamas had declared a unilateral cease fire which it only abandoned after several Israeli "extra judicial executions".

Israel has never wanted peace with the Palestinians because it feels it has more to gain by a continued state of war.

FM Paris

Fawzan, Paris,

The fact that more than 100 Palestinians and 3 Israelis died is due to the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, firing rockets from schools, hospitals and next to private houses and allowing children to follow terrorists around when fighting, etc. and the care that Israel takes to protect its people. You have not distinguished between Palestinian civilians and fighters nor why so many civilians die. Your statistic could easily read as if Israel has indulged in tit for tat murder by killing 100 Palestinains innnocents for 3 of their own. This plays into the hands of the terrorsts who read the news and grin at seeming like victims. They will not stop using human shields until they find that it makes them look bad and that they are losing the sympathy of Western media.

R Mason, London, UK

I for one am very glad Israel's response was (and will remain) disproportionate. A "proportionate" response would be the indiscriminate targeting of Palestinian children and women.
So while one can argue over the strategy of invading Gaza, I think we should all be very glad that whatever the strategy and the politics--the Israeli response is indeed disproportionate.

Inna, Sacramento, CA, USA

The intention of Hamas has always been to kill as many Jews as possible. If all the thousands of rockets that had been fired from the Gaza Strip over the last seven years had been accurate, we would be looking at five-figure fatality numbers. Israel must act decisively before the terrorist's weapons improve further.

Edward B, Kent, United Kingdom

What a gross discussion on what is or is not proportionate -what is the critics answer to the question anyway ?Even one death is too many for either side ,but the fact that Israels counteroffensive /defense has had more consequences is not the yardstick to be applied -The militants have sent thousands of rockets with deadly intent to kill and maim -thankfully so many have missed .If those militants had any regard for the fate of the Palestinians they would swallow their hatred and false pride and sit down to talk peace after recognising the Israelis right to exist .Israel has repeatedly said that is all they need to do ,but that they cannot negotiate with a people whose only purpose is to obliterate tham .
Let Hamas follow the example of the truly great Arabs ,Sadat and Prince Hussein of Jordan and see how easy peace would be
.Admiration and help from the whole world would surely follow

phil, lancs,

You ask "Any talk of a “proportionate” response is self-defeating. What is proportionate? The question should be: what is effective?"
The answer to that is very simple - effective and proportionate are the same thing. The effective and proportionate response is one that is so terrible in the price that the Palestinians have to pay that they won't think of sending even a single firecracker over the border for generations to come. By that time, hopefully there will be a full peace.

George Alexander, Kfar Saba, Israel

Hamas is responsible for civilian deaths because it operates from civilian areas. Numerous news articles reference members of the Gaza public confronting Israeli soldiers; they know the soldiers will avoid shooting them but they are also responsible if they are killed, as is Hamas for encouraging this dangerous behaviour.

It should be noted that Ashkelon supplies Gaza with most of its electricity and so Hamas obviously does not mind bringing "humanitarian disasters" on their own people. It is not Israel's fault that "Western public opinion" is too uninformed to realise it. Western media could and should be enlightening readers through editorials but instead prefers to AGAIN highlight a verbal error and mistranslation over the word "shoah."

The Times should now state how much of Israel needs to become unlivable due to rocket before Israel is “allowed” to do whatever to takes to stop it. Do this out of that friendship mentioned in the article.

Brad Brzezinski, Ottawa, Canada

R Mason, you are wrong. Shoa means either disaster or holocaust. In Hebrew when you ad "ha" before a word you indicate that the subject is either tangible or well known. Therefore Hashoa refers to the holocaust of all holocausts i.e. The Holocaust.

Josh, Tel Aviv, Israel

Why is the number of deaths the only measurement used here? What is any country in Israel's situation supposed to do?

Its neighbour openly allows/backs terrorists to fire scores of rockets on a daily basis indiscriminently into its towns, killing and injuring its civilians and prohibiting thousands from living their daily lives. If the towns were British and if the rockets were fired from France, what would us Brits want to be done?

A B, London, UK

Excellent article. Israel is stuck. There is pressure at home, as the residents of Sderot who have had thousands of rockets landing on them in the past seven years, complain about the lack of government response. On the other hand, as soon as they do anything they're subject to massive criticism internationally.

This article from haaretz (left-wing Israeli newspaper) shows what a difficult position Israel are in, and how few choices they actually have: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/960687.html

LB, London,

Shoa - or shoah - is not the Hebrew word for holocaust but for disaster. The Holocaust is known in Hebrew as HaShoah - The Disaster - to indicate no ordinary disaster but the biggest of all the disasters to befall the Jewish people.

R Mason, London, UK

That the palestinian people voted Hamas into power aligned themselves with their known objectives. For them to complain now about the consequences of voting in terrorists who send rocket attacks on civilian centres is naieve - a 'legitimate' government headed by Hamas is at war with Israel....and its people really should have thought that maybe taking on a neighbour with vastly superior firepower before voting them in.

They made their decision - if they dont like the results they should maybe get a government which doesnt want to wipe out Israel.

Nik, London,

In this day and age of multicultural hybrid societies, why are we all ignoring the only viable solution: one secular state with a large Palestinian majority.

At the time when Palestinians had freedom of movement within historical Palestine/Eretz yisrael the security and economic situation where much better for all. The Palestinian minority in Israel plays the game according to the rules of Israel semi-democracy because they are allowed to and are therefor no longer a security threat to Israel, whereas the rest of the Palestinians living in the territories occupied in 1967 cannot participate in this and are confined to a fraction of the country and to their own parallel network of roads. The two state solution died around 1996 with settlement expansion, the hebron massacre, the assassination of Rabin and the suicide bombings that followed. We should bury it and move towards a one-state solution.

Al, London,

Quite right, Steve, the idea of proportionality is absurd. The Germans lost 20 times more people than the Brits in allied bombing in WW2. Did anyone talk about a 'disproportionate' response, then?
The reason why there have not been more Israeli deaths is because of the rocket early warning system.

Lyn, london, UK

Very well articulated Steve. I completely agree.

Michael, London, UK

Why are the deaths of 100 Arab guerrilla fighters (and some civilians) so "disproportionate"? Population-wise, there are 100 Arabs in the Middle East for every Jew. And nobody in Western public opinion complains when Palestinians demand 500 convicted terrorist prisoners in exchange for 1 kidnapped Israeli soldier. What is the nature of war and victory anyway? That all sides die in equal proportions? That's absurd. The English public never perished from the Blitz and random V-2 rocket attacks like Germans suffered in the fire bombings at Dresden. Does that make the Allied victory in WW2 illegitimate? Or a war crime?

As long as Hamas proclaims that Israel should be wiped off the map (a direct call for genocide) and continue to conduct constant rocket attacks and suicide bombings aimed at civilian population centers, then whatever happens to them and the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian public that voted them into power, is simply the rules of engagement.

Steve S, Los Angeles, USA