While eyes remain peeled on Israel’s increasingly violent and expanding campaign in Lebanon, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is proving ever more predatory with the Gaza Strip. With aggrandizing impunity, more territory is being acquired for familiar reasons: Hamas is on the run and needs to be crushed further (the organisation is proving oddly resilient and contradictory to Israeli objectives here); Palestinian autonomy, even in so small an area, would be a future threat to Israel unless heavily invigilated and policed; and, well, there is that old desire to ethnically cleanse the territory.

Troops say little discretion is exercised in shooting those who come near truce line, call ceasefire 'a joke'; IDF says line clearly marked, no reason for Palestinians to approach