Now it is clear which side wants violence. William Booth and Griff Witte write in the Washington Post:

Israel’s security cabinet voted to accept an initiative from Egypt’s military-backed government that had been announced Monday evening. Israel suspended its operations in Gaza at 9 a.m. local time, but rocket fire from militants there continued.

A senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, accused Egypt of collaborating with Israel to spring the proposal on the militant Palestinian Islamist group without prior warning. He called the proposal “unacceptable” and said Egypt is not a fair mediator because its government is deeply hostile toward Hamas.

“We are holding in our hands a proposal we got off social media,” Zuhri said. “We refuse to be dealt with in such a way.”

The group’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, wrote on its Web site that the initiative was “not worth the ink it was written with” [odd since others rejected it for being offered on social media] and vowed that “the resistance will continue until all the demands of our people are met.”

That is pretty clear, if inconsistent. Israel is responding perfectly appropriately:

Netanyahu indicated Tuesday that a Hamas rejection of the Egyptian proposal would lead to an escalation of a conflict that has already left at least 185 Gazans dead.

“If Hamas rejects the Egyptian proposal and the rocket fire continues, which it looks like it does at the moment, then we are prepared to continue and intensify the operation against Hamas, and we will get the support from the members of the international community,” Netanyahu said Tuesday at a news conference at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.

Hamas is playing the usual Palestinian game of using civilians and children as human shields, launching rockets from houses, schools, hospitals, mosques and other sites where innocents will be killed when Israel attacks the offensive weapons being used against it. Then, the “international community” wrings its hands over the “disproportionate response” – as if  taking out weapons being used to attack Israeli civilians is not appropriate self-defense.

Hamas is increasingly desperate. It is unable to pay its officials, and Gaza is now effectively sealed off, as Egypt (increasingly hostile to Hamas) has closed its border crossings, and Hamas itself has closed the Erez Crossing into Israel.  That way, Gazans will be unable to receive medical treatment in Israel, and supplies will be cut off. Once again, the welfare of Palestinians is secondary to scoring political points against Israel.

Will Palestinians ever wake up and realize that they have been exploited as pawns and sacrificial lambs for the jihad ambitions of their putative leaders?