A correspondent for the Telegraph newspaper describes the considerable lengths Israel went to avoid hurting civilians in this past week's flare-up with Hamas in Gaza.
Raf Sanchez had spent the previous few days covering the skirmishes between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. "We’ve just come out of Gaza for a quick trip to see how things are after this week’s fighting. A couple of observations," Sanchez began a long threat on Twitter.
"We got a sense of how careful Israel was to avoid civilian casualties during the airstrikes in Gaza. The Israeli army called one guy we met and spent 45 mins on the phone with him, getting him to evacuate his neighbors before they blew up a Hamas media building next to his," reported Sanchez.
In a tactic known as "roof knowing", the IDF often calls up civilians living near a target set to be destroyed and orders them out of the area in order to avoid collateral damage.
Sanchez added that Hamas viewed outgoing Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman's resignation following the fighting as a victory. "Hamas are buoyant about how this went down. News of Lieberman’s resignation is being blasted from all media channels as a sign of victory. Their leaders are going in front of bomb sites to do TV interviews etc," tweeted Sanchez.