"It is reasonable to assume - and indeed reports bear out- that non-combatant civilians will keep under cover" - if it is true that large numbers of people were buried alive in the rubble of their bulldozed houses that would be consistent with that.

As I said, reporters, photographers, observers and medics knew they would be risking their lives, and they were willing to take that risk. The same way people like that took the risk on Bloody Sunday, though of course the risk then was far less.

Maybe it is a lie that captured prisoners were lined up and shot, and that civilians were used as human shields by Israeli soldiers. Maybe it is the truth. If there had been independent witnesses of what happened it would be a lot easier to know either way.

Thanks, Carol C, for reminding us that there are precedents for what is alleged to have taken place, which is in fact not untypical of what happens in colonial wars carried out by Western countries.

And not just Western countries - here's a quote from a report in today's Guardiuan from Ramallah:

"Alsakakimi was a distinguished Palestinian educator and writer. He was imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities during the first world war and was hanged for protecting a Jewish friend in his house. Eighty-five years later, the Israelis are paying back Alsakakimi's favour...

I set off on foot for the Khalil Alsakakimi cultural centre, 100 metres from my house.... When I reached the once beautiful building, I found that the doors had been blown off. Broken glass covered the floor. Paintings hung off the walls or lay on the ground. The office of the poet Mahmoud Darwish was vandalised. Books and manuscripts of his poems were strewn over the floor, with soldiers' boot prints stamped on them."