News sources are reporting that a ceasefire has been reached between Israel and Hamas.
Except that maybe it doesn't mean that that firing will really cease.
In any event, the current fight seems banal. It's basically the same event that's been happening once or twice a year since before Daily Kos existed. Every few years there's a larger fight. A small number of people die in the small fights, and a larger number of people die in the bigger ones. Lately the world only really reacts to the big ones; the small ones are part of the routine.
If you're reading this diary for my take on who's at fault for this latest fighting -- I don't know. There are various opinions on the subject in diaries that have been published over the last few days; if you haven't made up your mind on who's at fault, you can check them out. I doubt that the folks who have died in these battles and bombings over the years care who's at fault, or whether they died on purpose or by accident.
If you've made some comments on other diaries over the last few days to express your opinion on fault, moral standing, international law, historical claims and other factors, it will likely be easy to just cut and paste them verbatim into new diaries a few months from now, which will be about the next round of fighting. I'm no expert on the conflict, but it seems that for innumerable reasons there's no clear path to a lasting peace, and that the future is pregnant with only more fighting and needless death. It's terribly sad.