Israel, in response to these claims, alleges that its targets were military, housing rocket launchers or militants.  But Israel has offered no evidence of these defenses, and is allowing no journalists in the area, and is allowing no international military, paramilitary or interpol presence in the warzone.  So there is no accountability for either side.

Meanwhile, Hamas foolishly continues to pepper the nearest Israeli city with rockets, making international calls for an Israeli-led ceasefire difficult to support. 

What does the church say to this situation?  Nothing substantially new, I think.  The church would call for a ceasefire from both sides, and I think has to hold both sides accountable for the levels this has escalated to.  What is important now, though, is not blame, not even peace, but aid for those civilians trapped in the warzone, where water is scarce, bodies of slain militants lay strewn about the streets, and one in five Palestinian dead are civilian.

In appealing to Israel, the church should speak to our commonality, calling Israel to stand on the moral high ground it has consistently claimed for itself.  The church should speak unequivocally and publicly to Israel, urging for, if nothing else, an honest declaration of intent.  If Israel will not cease the military campaign, it must at the very least allow journalists and humanitarian relief workers into the area.  Their refusal to do so strikes the same chords with the world as Hamas' continual firing of rockets into Israeli residential areas. 

In all of this, I believe God has a word for the church as well.  I would imagine that if the church were unified and true enough to Christ's way, it would have the moral authority to simply walk into the area (or it would already be in the area) to minister to those in need.  Certainly, we could work in ways unknown to the nations.  Even if denied access at gunpoint to the warzone, the church could by its prophetic presence make a spectacle of the Israeli military, if it would truly prefer to point their guns at Christians rather than to see their enemies' wives and children cared for.

In the end, the point is made in the spiteful quote above as Jesus himself made it.  Don't you know that he who takes the sword shall die by the sword?  All these cycles of violence, someone has to stand outside it all and break the cycles of retribution.

-NDSR