The horrifying pictures that emerged Sunday evening from the home of the al Dalou family in central Gaza are liable to be the Palestinian version of the Lebanese village of Kafr Qana. Just as the pictures showing the results of the Israeli bombing of Kafr Qana in July 2006 changed the face of the Second Lebanon War and turned world public opinion against the Israeli operation, in the same way the bombardment of the house in Gaza and the killing of all 12 of its residents is liable to elicit Arab, European and, above all, American pressure on Israel to stop the aerial attacks immediately.
Among those killed in the house were five women, four children and three men. Al Jazeera television repeatedly broadcast the pictures of the bodies of the four children, who were 2 to 5 years old, lying next to each other in the hospital in Gaza on Sunday.
The live broadcasts from the house focused on documenting the attempts to rescue survivors from the ruins, but the cameras recorded only the discovery of another body there. Those pictures were broadcast all over the Arab world, on the eve of the arrival of an Arab League foreign ministers’ delegation, which was supposed to bring with it a cease-fire agreement. We can assume that just as in 2006, when Hezbollah retracted its intention of agreeing to a cease-fire in the wake of the Kfar Qana incident, this event too will only cause Hamas to toughen its positions toward Israel, in light of very sympathetic Palestinian and Arab public opinion.
One indication that the campaign in Gaza is starting to get into trouble, as far as Israel is concerned, is the constant increase in the number of casualties among Palestinian civilians. Even before the al Dalou family, reports about casualties among children, women and the elderly have been increasing over the past two days, while harm caused to militants from Hamas or other organizations has been relatively limited.