Israel - Gaza War Day 6: Rain and Tension.

Last night the Israel Defence Force (IDF) did not carry out a ground invasion of Gaza. This could be that there was never a invasion planned. It could be that dumping tonnes of cement dust, jet fuel and explosive residue into the atmosphere caused it to rain making Israel's military leadership concerned that as tank attack would quickly get bogged down in the mud. It could be that the Israeli political leadership decided that it would be incredibly difficult to diplomatically justify a land invasion. No doubt all these and other questions will all be answered to dramatic effect in the run up to Israel's election.

Meanwhile Israeli tanks are still in position along the Gazan border no doubt revving their engines, singing songs and making loud jokes about how they're going to get Ghilad back. All this is of course being done to raise tensions with Gaza in the hope that it will cause local forces to check and re-check their defences and in the process "lighting up" these defences as targets for the Israeli Air Force. In Gaza itself the IAF has suddenly discovered that their F-16's and Apache helicopters are in fact fitted with some of the latest laser-guided weapon targeting systems and have carried out a number of precision strikes including one on the home of a senior Hamas official who had publicly called from the resumption of suicide attacks within Israel. At the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza the IDF are reporting that they have allowed 19 truck loads of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Local sources are putting the actual number at closer to 4, raising the question of whether the IDF are just blatantly lying or are mis-counting support vehicles such as Land Rovers and Forklifts as truck loads of aid.

Rocket attacks have continued against civilian targets within Israel at the sort of ranges that would suggest that Hamas has begun to deploy it's stockpiles of military grade rockets alongside the traditional Qassams. As usual there have been no reports of any injuries or deaths although ironically 64 people were killed by fireworks in Thailand.

Now if anyone needs me I'm off to throttle the cat after he spent most of last night playing the hilarious game of mischievously licking my eyeball every time I went into REM sleep.