Gaza.

This is coolbert:

Here is your daily hot button topic. Thanks to the BBC.

"Israel set for prolonged Gaza op"

"Israel says it will widen its attacks on Hamas if necessary to stop the Palestinian militant group firing rockets from the Gaza Strip."

"Israeli F-16 bombers hit targets across the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 225 people, local medics say."

"'If what we're doing in the air will not suffice we'll continue on the ground,' Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told BBC News."

"Israel's air raids were the heaviest on the Gaza Strip for decades."

The truce, between Israel and Hamas has ended. A six-month hiatus [actually more like four months], now over. Hamas has resumed firing Qassam rockets at Sderot and Ashkelon with abandon. And the Israeli now has retaliated with massive force.

Attacking, with presumably laser guided bombs, Hamas infrastructure, fighting positions, munitions factories, etc.

From the news [radio] reports this evening, the IAF [Israel Air Force], by self-admission, has dropped 100 tons of bombs on Gaza.

100 TONS of bombs dropped in just one day is extraordinary.

My comment:

* That 100 tons is just not the weight of the bombs. That is primarily the weight of the high explosive contained within the bomb. An aerial delivered bomb has a thin skin, the vast percentage of the bomb's total weight being the explosive.

That 100 tons, too, needs to be put into context.

During the British preparatory bombardment for the Somme Offensive [1916], British artillerymen, firing almost continuously, also were able to deliver about 900 tons of high explosive on the German targets. BUT REQUIRED SEVEN DAYS OF INTENSIVE EFFORT TO DO SO, 1.5 MILLION ARTILLERY ROUNDS BEING FIRED DURING THAT TIME!!

12,000 tons of artillery shells were fired during that time period [seven days], but those shells contained ONLY 900 tons of high-explosive bang stuff!

100 tons in one day alone in a small concentrated area like Gaza is an enormous expenditure of ordnance. And in such a heavily populated area as Gaza, you are going to have a lot of collateral damage and civilian unintended deaths, laser guidance or no laser guidance.

coolbert.