Russia is not doing this in Ukraine. The US did not do this in Cambodia or Vietnam. The allies did not do this in Germany towards the end of World War II. During these conflicts which resulted in many thousands of civilian deaths, none of these countries made any effort whatsoever to minimise the number of civilian deaths.

As the fighting returned to Gaza, Israel resumed its warnings to civilians in southern Gaza, by using leaflets, radio messages, phone calls and social media, asking them to move to safer areas at the southern edge of the Strip near the Rafah crossing with Egypt. This practice of warning civilians is a double edged sword that clearly also advises the leaders of Hamas where they should evacuate to in order to evade capture. No other military force in the world has consistently deployed this practice in war.

Israel still has two main objectives for this campaign. The first is the return of all the hostages and the second is the elimination of Hamas’s military capability. Israel can no longer tolerate on its border the presence of an internationally proscribed terrorist organisation hell bent on killing Israelis. The second objective however is made significantly more difficult as Israel maintains its attempts to minimise civilian casualties by advising them where to find safe areas in the strip.

During the truce, which began on November 24, Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza released more than 100 hostages, 81 Israelis and 24 other nationalities, mainly Thais. Israel freed 240 Palestinians from its prisons. Virtually all those released by both sides were women and children.

The original four-day cease-fire deal that began on 24 November was twice extended for a total of three days to allow for the exchange of more captives. Israel had agreed to prolong the truce if Hamas turned over an additional 10 hostages per day in exchange for 30 Palestinians.

The first signs that the ceasefire was approaching an end were noticed early last Thursday morning as Hamas for the first time violated the hostage exchange agreement by providing Israel with a list of those to be released that included only seven women plus three bodies held by the terrorists.

This was an indication that Hamas had decided to renege on the agreement made by all sides to initially exchange all the children, mothers and elderly women held by the terrorists.

All night, between Wednesday and Thursday last week, Israel and Hamas exchanged messages and notes as Qatar tried to pressure Hamas to keep its promises.

At 06:15 that morning, Israel was still holding a list of only seven hostages and three bodies, in contrast to the agreement on the release of ten living hostages. The Israeli Defence minister had already ordered the air Force to prepare for an attack.

At 06: 35 a new list arrived from Hamas, which met the terms of the agreement and included ten living hostages. Within five minutes, a decision was made by the US state department to approve the list, and at 06:45, fifteen minutes before the truce ended, an IDF spokesman announced that Israel was holding fire for another day. “We were within a hair’s breadth of opening fire,” a senior security official said.

According to Israeli information, 15 other women and two minors still remain in Hamas captivity. Hamas however claims that it does not know where the other women are and so it moved on to the next agreed category, older men, for which it demanded the release of adult Palestinian prisoners.

These are however the most dangerous prisoners Israel holds as they have been guilty of killing Israeli citizens and Israel is unwilling to release them at this stage.

In the absence of an agreement regarding the release of further hostages, Hamas started to launch rockets on the morning of Friday 1st December, about half an hour before the ceasefire officially ended, thus announcing that it is over. Hamas returned to firing rockets at Israel and the IDF responded with full force.

The Israeli position was expressed by an IDF spokesman stating that Hamas did not live up to its duty to release all the kidnapped women and instead launched rockets at the citizens of Israel.

He continued to confirm that with the return to the fighting, the Israeli government is committed to achieving the goals of the war — to release the hostages and eliminate Hamas thus ensuring that Gaza will never again pose a threat to the residents of Israel,

It is likely that the next phase of the ground operation in Gaza will continue for several months, although the actual time frame will be determined by the level of resistance Hamas puts up. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has not provided any statistics on the number of Hamas members who have been killed, so the group’s remaining strength is unknown.

The general view however is that the negotiations are not over. It is thought that Egypt and Qatar are still holding talks with both sides, It is accepted that although Hamas needed a continuation of the truce, it was not prepared to pay the price and this has led to the resumption of the fighting. The main concern for Israel now is that as the fighting intensifies, it will increase the danger for the lives of the remaining hostages. The fear of killing hostages is almost certainly delaying Israel from entering the tunnel systems in a meaningful way. There are hundreds of kilometres of tunnels and perhaps as many as a hundred tunnel complexes. Such a dangerous mission is going to take time.

The future for Gaza remains unknown and Israel has not indicated what its strategy will be when the fighting is over. Once the southern campaign is complete and Israel’s objective of removing Hamas is achieved, Israel must not remain responsible for the security in Gaza. Ideally, an alternate security force composed of troops from other countries will provide security in Gaza to enable reconstruction and state building activities. What will this look like? It is far too soon to tell.