Israeli invasion of Gaza might very well be Bush's terminal war crime, if he doesn't commit the blunder of attacking Iran at the same time. People around the world were already expecting that with less than a month at his disposal, the lame-duck would certainly commit the gigantic blunder to further drench the pages of history with the blood of the innocent Palestinians. With only less than a week at his disposal before his sun finally sets down, this might as well be his terminal sin. In his weekly radio address, delivered as Israeli tanks and armour rumbled into Gaza, Bush venomously declared: "This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas, a terrorist Palestinian group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel's destruction. Another one-way ceasefire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable. Any promises from Hamas will not suffice and there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end. I urge all parties to pressure Hamas to turn away from terror." Medical authorities in Gaza on January 7 put the death toll in the 12-day Israeli onslaught at over 700, including children and women. The number of wounded, in the meanwhile, has risen to 3,100, 46 percent of them women and children. Tens of thousands emotionally charged Palestinians attended a mass burial in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza on Tuesday, when Israeli forces deliberately shelled the UN-run al-Fakhora school, where they had sought refuge. John Ging, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip, dismissed Tel Aviv claims that its forces had shelled the school after coming under mortar fire from the facility. "I can tell categorically that there was no militant activity in the school at the time of the tragedy," Ging told Al-Jazeera. "They were innocent people....Approximately 15,000 Palestinians have fled to the 23 UN-run schools in the territory in hopes of finding security." Ban Ki-Moon condemned these attacks calling them as "totally unacceptable." He said in a statement, "After earlier strikes, the Israeli government was warned that its operations were endangering UN compounds. I am deeply dismayed that despite repeated efforts, today's tragedies have ensued." The UN called for a formal investigation into Jabalya's massacre. By now the UN secretary general must realise that with Washington at its back, no condemnation, UN resolution or even an investigation could be launched against Zionist Israel. Why make such cosmetic statements to deceive the world at large? The premeditated slaughter at the UN-run school is a war crime for which the Israeli government and military are directly responsible. As atrocities pile on atrocity, it is clear that IDF (Israeli defence forces) are using Hamas's insignificant rocketing as the pretext for terrorising the entire Palestinian population. "Hamas is not all that bad," the US army speaks for them. The army war college chose last week to release a report that had some surprisingly kind words for Hamas. Their political and strategic development has both been ignored and misrepresented by Tel Aviv and western sources that project them as a villainous lot, much as the PLO was once characterised as an anti-Semitic terrorist group. Both Israel and the US need to abandon their policy of non-negotiation and non-communication with Hamas to preserve a long-term truce, or even a longer-term peace. The problem is that Tel Aviv wants to usurp whole of Palestine. For eight years, Bush has coupled unparalleled ignorance of the Middle East with absolute arrogance that was on display at a time when politically motivated Israeli invasion of Gaza unfolded with the full Washington support. One can't imagine a more sweeping endorsement of Israel's genocide in the Strip. He did not just give Tel Aviv a green light to inflict as much damage as possible on Hamas once that radical movement foolishly renounced a six month old truce. Tel Aviv, if it had really desired to work out an accommodation with the Palestinians, it could easily have absorbed the indigenous designed Qassam rockets launched by Hamas, nearly all of which crashed harmlessly in remote areas and caused no loss of life and property. It could have been resolved if Tel Aviv had honestly endorsed and supported efforts of Saudi Arabia and Egypt to create a lasting accord with Hamas and Al-Fatah. Instead, Israel did just the opposite by meeting each of Hamas' acts of violence with far greater violence of its own. Had Israel not been backed by the US Zionists in its war, Tel Aviv wouldn't have been so arrogant and harsh with the Palestinians, because it can't possibly live with them riding on the American guns. Israel is a small country and must live with its neighbours in peace. Wars of aggression never brought peace in the past and never would in the future. Living on borrowed time in a stolen land doesn't confer the right to subjugate whole of Palestine, ruling it with the "force of arms" would certainly lead to disaster. If the Jews in Israel want to live in peace, they must establish very close friendship with the people of the land who inhabit it, rather than a Zionist demagogue controlling them from Washington. In the hiatus before Obama takes power, Tel Aviv has decided to take advantage of the vacuum, get one more shot at decimating the Palestinians, before who knows what happens once the neocons finally step down. They only have less than a fortnight, but that's just time enough to hand Obama a fate accompli. The Israeli military command planned the invasion when it was in the midst of negotiations to extend the ceasefire reached six months back. An Israeli senior military commander had warned the Gazans that they faced a "Shoah," the Hebrew word for holocaust. After the bloodbath of Gaza, it turned out that he spoke the truth. One more time, Tel Aviv is trying to crush the Palestinians. It was Beirut in 1982 and now Gaza after 25 years. After every so-called peace agreement, such as the Oslo accord, conditions have dramatically got much worse than they were in the past. Hamas might be thoughtless, but in their minds what do they have to lose? Why not try the "ghost dance"? Lords of the "deceitful ring" don't really know what they are doing. They don't even understand their own follies. The writer is a retired inspector general of police