This was an incredibly brave action on the part of those involved, in the light of the number of occasions when civilians have been killed in the course of Israeli assassinations, and of the fact when a similar tactic had been tried a few days before some of those taking part had been killed.

Indeed a few hours later, on the very same day the human shield succeeded in deterring this bombing, an IAF assassination attack killed a 75 year old man, and wounded nine people, including four children aged five, 13, 14, and 16. Here is the Haaretz report on this.

Saying that Israelis "do not care about hurting Arab civilians" is a generalisation too far - clearly there are some Israelis who do care about that sort of thing, perhaps even most Israelis. But the killings take place, for all that, and the number killed have always been far far higher than the numbers killed in reprisal by Palestinians.

This "new tactic" is perhaps the most encouraging development in a long time, if it offers hope that the concept of martyrdom can be shifted from suicide bombing to a non-violent willingness to face death but without killing. And the fact that on this occasion it succeeded, and that the Israelis responded by refusing to kill the human shields, is a spark of hope in a situation that has appeared increasingly hopeless.