AS ISRAEL indulges again its blood lust, it is worth noting that if it wanted lasting peace, it could negotiate it tomorrow by agreeing to dismantle all its illegal settlements, returning to its 1967 borders and lifting its illegal blockade of Gaza, thereby complying with numerous UN resolutions.

Hamas has agreed that it would accept this and it would leave Israel with all its previous land grabs.

Any peace treaty or truce is farcical as long as Israel controls Gaza, killing any Palestinian straying within 1.5km of its borders or 6km from its coast, casually assassinating whoever it chooses and preventing any country in the world trading or giving assistance without its permission.

Of course the missiles fired into civilian areas by Hamas or by Gaza’s bereaved citizens as a barbaric and desperate expression of their imprisonment must be condemned.

That such carefully enumerated projectiles are reported across the Western media suggests that they are the cause of conflict when they are simply a response to a much heavier daily barrage from Israel which is too routine to be considered news at all.

Roger Westmoreland, The Oval, Pocklington.