Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, announced a tripling of UK humanitarian aid to Gaza, pledging an additional £20m. He also criticised Israel for using excessive force. "We are yet to discover the full scale of the appalling suffering. But what is already clear is that too many innocent civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed."
Since "too many innocent civilians, including hundreds of children have been killed", then apparently, there is a just right number of innocent civilians including children that could have been massacred such that PM Brown would not have felt compelled to comment.
With the Palestinian death toll standing at more than 1,300, and rising as more bodies are found under the Gaza rubble, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said he was sending a humanitarian needs assessment team to compile a report within 10 days.
The previous day, the Guardian reported:
After 22 days of air strikes, artillery from land and sea, tank shelling and ground combat the Palestinian death toll stands at more than 1,200, with bodies being discovered every day under the rubble. Around 5,000 were injured, many of them left with terrible disabilities. On the Israeli side 13 were killed, three of them civilians and four soldiers mistakenly hit by their own troops.
Perhaps Israel declared its unilateral cease-fire because the kill ratio of 100 to 1 (1300 to 13) has garnered the comments from the British PM.
