Certainly the humanitarian crisis in Gaza evokes sympathy. But the full and complete responsibility for that crisis lies at the feet of Hamas. The Palestinian daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (published on the West Bank) reported on the Abd Rabbo family. The Abd Rabbos had the misfortune to own a farm that overlooked the Israeli town of Sderot. This, the newspaper reports, turned it into an ideal military position for the Palestinian fighters, from which they have launched hundreds of rockets into southern Israel during the last few years. “The Abd Rabbo family members emphasize that they are not (Hamas) activists and that they are still loyal to the Fatah movement, but that they were unable to prevent the armed squads from entering their neighborhood at night. One family member, Hadi (age 22) said: ‘You can’t say anything to the resistance (fighters), or they will accuse you of collaborating (with Israel) and shoot you in the legs.’”

As in Jenin, Israel took extraordinary measures to limit civilian casualties in Gaza. Reporting in the Weekly Standard, Max Boot notes that the IDF made hundreds of thousands of phone calls and dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets warning civilians to vacate sites of impending attacks. “When the Israeli Air Force detected Palestinian civilians atop buildings,” Boot writes, “it dropped tiny bombs designed to cause little damage. Only when the civilians had cleared off did the air force drop larger munitions that flattened the structure.”

Unlike the Israelis, Hamas was keen to increase Palestinian casualties of violence. Gaza is full of munitions, smuggling tunnels, and incitement videos exhorting the faithful to kill Jews, but it’s nearly impossible to find a bomb shelter in the Strip. By contrast, the Israeli town of Sderot, where my 12-year-old son visited last week, is covered with them. He sat in the living room of an 80-year-old woman whose son had urged her to take cover in the newly built bomb shelter in her basement. Five minutes after she reluctantly rose from her sofa and left the room, a Kassam rocket crashed through the ceiling.

Sderot is home to 23,000 long-suffering people. Boot reports that at no time during the past eight years has Sderot enjoyed more than four consecutive days without a missile attack. I cannot imagine how they bear the anxiety. I felt a tiny shred of what they must go through when I worried about my son’s recent visit. National Review

— Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.