Whether it's Bush or bin Laden, (the murder wing of)Hamas, Zarqawi or the Israeli Defense Forces, the destructive pathologies are so similar as to be virtually indistinguishable.

Denial is our most dangerous adversary.

Utterly wrenching.

And why has this sort of thing not been seen on US TV before this?  Not since the father trying to shield his young son who was killed by, allegedly, Israeli military shots has the agony of Palestinian civilians been shown.

Why now?

Because of Haditha and the other possible misdeeds by US military?  To show that we're not the only military which ends of taking out innocent children and their parents?  

Why now????

Although I'm sure that these killings are accidental inasmuch as the IDF wasn't aiming for these particular individuals, shelling civilian areas in northern Gaza is not an accident. Qassams are not very effective, but they are very difficult to stop militarily because they are so portable. So Israel hopes that if it can make the civilian population hurt badly enough, they will manage to stop the Qassams.  (I don't think that is very logical, but that does seem to be the rationale that the Israeli govt is operating under).

Arnon Soffer, a leading Israeli demographer who was a confidant of Ariel Sharon and supposedly influential in his decision to disengage from the Palestinians by fencing them in behind imposed borders, explained how Israel would enforce its unilateral solution:

First of all, the fence is not built like the Berlin Wall. It's a fence that we will be guarding on either side. Instead of entering Gaza, the way we did last week, we will tell the Palestinians that if a single missile is fired over the fence, we will fire 10 in response. And women and children will be killed, and houses will be destroyed. After the fifth such incident, Palestinian mothers won't allow their husbands to shoot Kassams, because they will know what's waiting for them.

Second of all, when 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.

The IDF cannot acknowledge that it is targeting civilians to make them compliant, because that's a war crime, but in April (the day after 8-year-old Hadil Ghaber was killed by an Israeli shell landing on her house) Ha'aretz included this near the end of a report on her death:

Recently, the IDF also reduced the size of the "safety zones" artillery batteries must maintain around Palestinian communities. The military was aware the decision could result in civilian casualties, as occurred Monday. The safety zone was reduced from 300 meters to 100 meters. The shell fragmentation range is 100 meters, so the decision clearly endangers civilian lives.

So they're technically firing near, rather than at, residential neighborhoods, but so near that it is inevitable they will hit civilians.

It is no secret in Israel that the real target of the shelling is actually Palestinian public opinion rather than actual military targets, e.g. Ynet ran an editorial on it in April (Some methods of dealing with rocket attacks simply not kosher), but I'm sure for the U.S. audience this event will be stripped of its context and will be written off as "collateral" damage from an errant shell.