I spent hours yesterday morning and afternoon trying to convince my main Hamas contact to speak to his leaders to call for an immediately unconditional 24 hour ceasefire in order to prevent the escalation. My message made it all the way up to Khaled Mashal. I wanted to try to prevent the inevitable death of innocent people and the destruction that this war would cause.

The Hamas leadership decided to ignore the possibility of the ceasefire and challenged Israel to "bring it on". These irresponsible leaders are criminals to their own people. I can honestly say that Netanyahu did not want to escalate this war. It is so unfortunate that these Hamas leaders, some sitting in hotel abroad and others safely hiding underground in Gaza put the innocent people of Gaza in the direct line of fire. This is criminal.

Force alone will never be a proper response to the problems of human suffering. Israel had to respond with force, I am sorry to say, but Israel must also present a plan for addressing the real and urgent human needs of the 1.7 million people in Gaza, or else this ongoing war never end.

Gershon Baskin