By Alice Cuddy BBC News, Jerusalem
The call to Mahmoud Shaheen came at dawn.
It was Thursday 19 October at about 06:30, and Israel had been bombing Gaza for 12 days straight.
He’d been in his third-floor, three-bedroom flat in al-Zahra, a middle-class area in the north of the Gaza Strip. Until now, it had been largely untouched by air strikes.
He’d heard a rising clamour outside. People were screaming. “You need to escape,” somebody in the street shouted, “because they will bomb the towers”.
“Bending over backwards” is a bit excessive… but maybe “slightly reclining in their chairs”?
At least they’re doing “something”, instead of bombing out of the blue… and if it works to indemnify themselves from war crimes prosecution… yay, international law at work, right?
The cynic would say they’re lying, but did enough warning to make the PR videos
The Optimist would say they’re telling the truth, and always warning
The middle road would be they warn when it’s convenient, when the cell phones are working, but it’s not a hard requirement