Israel - Gaza War Day 2: The Ethnic Cleansing Begins.

Israel has continued it's air-strikes against Gaza dropping around 15 tonnes of bombs in an area slightly smaller then Memphis knocking out "security facilities" including a Mosque and TV stations. So far some 300 people have been killed and more are expected to die as the bombing campaign continues and medical services, already overstretched by the Israeli blockade, become overwhelmed and begin to collapse.

Aside from the industrial scale slaughter the most worrying development of the last 24 hours has been the sight of hundreds of Gazan civilians fleeing the country across the border into Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. This mass movement of refugees leaving their own country to escape from large scale military bombardment is classic tactic of Ethnic Cleansing that has been used to devastating effect in places such as Bosnia, Kosovo and Sudan. Although heartbreaking to watch and even more painful to do the only way Egypt can respond to this Israeli tactic is to strengthen their borders and force the refugees to remain in Gaza. Unfortunately a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt prevents Egyptian troops from entering the Sinai peninsula so they will have a tough time preventing this exodus from Gaza.

Inside Israel there has been some rocket and mortar fire prompting air-raid sirens to wail throughout the country but there have been no reports of any injuries or deaths. 6,500 army reservists have been called up and there are reports of tank movements along the Gaza/Israel border increasing the likelihood that this aeriel barrage is just a precursor to a ground invasion. I suspect this second phase of Israeli operations will begin around 03:00 GMT on Thursday January 1st and will probably take the form of a two pronged attack designed to cut the country in half originating from the zones around the Erez crossing and South West of Netivot but that is just a guess. The Israeli welfare minister has issued a statement declaring that Israel will "Continue it's campaign until the border [between Israel and Gaza] is permanently changed." This makes me worry that we can only be a few years away from the day when Israel announces it needs to invade Egypt to prevent rocket fire from the Sinai peninsula.