I've long had a lot of sympathy for Palestinians but the actions of Hamas in targeting innocent civilians is both heinous and difficult to fathom in terms of what they expect to achieve.

A glance at any map of Israel today compared with that of 1949 quickly shows how much land Israel has illegally appropriated over the years, mostly enabled by the West either turning a blind eye due to Cold War considerations or else the US actively supporting it. There had been hopes that things might ease but the rise of Benjamin Netanyahu has only made the situation worse and things have been brewing for a couple of years now.

Whilst it is clear that Iran actively supports Hamas, it is far from clear that these latest attacks will draw them into a full blown war with Israel so difficult to see what Hamas thought they would achieve other than Israel now retaliating with the virtual destruction of Gaza and thousands of more innocent lives lost.

Easy and right to condemn Hamas but I think all countries should also be mindful of how this situation came about that allowed an increasingly extremist Islamic regime to come to power in the first place. Just hope that Egypt or whoever can try and broker something before this escalates even further and drags in other countries. Dangerous and sad times.