THE eyes of world public opinion have been drawn once more to the Middle East and the plight of the long-suffering Palestinian people, as an already fragile and tense situation deteriorates, with an escalation in violence and the threat of another disastrous war looming large — the brunt of which will be borne, as always, by an innocent and already beleaguered civilian population.

The upsurge in violence over this past week — which has worsened hour by hour, day by day — now threatens to engulf the densely populated besieged Gaza Strip and is the worst since the Israeli military’s atrocious relentless bombardment of the territory, with the world watching on in summer 2014 and the huge civilian death toll it exacted, a horrific trauma from which the Palestinian population had barely even begun to recover.

One cannot fail to note that, amid the fighting and drive towards war, the fallout from a domestic political crisis which was poised just over a week ago to bring an end to the tenure of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister — with his trial on serious corruption charges already under way — has conveniently abated for the time being. The clamour for his resignation has fallen silent.