An uneasy ceasefire seems to have taken hold in Gaza, stopping Israeli warplanes from pounding the Palestinians in the strip after four days that left 25 Palestinians dead.

The blame game started from day one: Israel said it killed the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) on Friday because he was “planning” to attack it through the Sinai desert; US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the firing of rockets at Israel — in response to its initial killings — the UN, France and Russia expressed concern or tepidly appealed for an end to the fighting.

There was no strong condemnation of Israel’s unprovoked crimes, no outcry at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration, to his Likud Party, that “the Israeli army will continue to attack the terrorists in Gaza with strength and determination”.

Criticism was of the rockets lobbed on Israel — no casualty registered — which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called “unacceptable” and Clinton condemned.

Hamas, who rules Gaza, refrained throughout from intervening. It was the Islamic Jihad and PRC, armed groups independent of Hamas, that fired the rockets across border at Israel.

Besides the act itself, one cannot but question the timing of Israel’s deadly attacks. What possessed it to provoke such serious security deterioration along its southern border with Gaza?

Netanyahu may feel frustrated by US President Barack Obama, whom he recently visited and who did not give him the necessary encouragement to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities.

His reasoning must be that provoking Hamas will justify his “need” to strike Iran, with which the Islamic movement in Gaza is often associated.

If Hamas does not answer, and it did not, Israel presses more. The result: more death and destruction among Palestinians, and still no green light to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The international community, busy with other events in the region, marginally watches the events unfold in Gaza, unable and unwilling to do anything except express the tired wish of seeing the two sides go back to the negotiating table.

And so another crime comes to pass, more Palestinians are dead and the world watches resignedly how the embers under a major conflict in the Middle East are kept aflame by a rogue nation.