Now about all civilians who have died, see N.Y.Times below

[Guest guest]

ERUSALEM — The grinding urban battle unfolding in the densely

populated Gaza Strip is a war of new tactics, quick adaptation and

lethal tricks.

Fierce Focus on Tunnels, a Lifeline for Gazans with training from

Iran and Hezbollah, has used the last two years to turn Gaza into a

deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs.

Weapons are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and

the leadership's war room is a bunker beneath Gaza's largest

hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say.

Unwilling to take Israel's bait and come into the open, Hamas

militants are fighting in civilian clothes; even the police have been

ordered to take off their uniforms. The militants emerge from tunnels

to shoot automatic weapons or antitank missiles, then disappear back

inside, hoping to lure the Israeli soldiers with their fire.

In one apartment building in Zeitoun, in northern Gaza, Hamas set an

inventive, deadly trap. According to an Israeli journalist embedded

with Israeli troops, the militants placed a mannequin in a hallway

off the building's main entrance. They hoped to draw fire from

Israeli soldiers who might, through the blur of night vision goggles

and split-second decisions, mistake the figure for a fighter. The

mannequin was rigged to explode and bring down the building.

Is it possible that hamas has fudged on all those

supposedly " innocent civilians?

No, I won't apologize for the N.Y.Times