Our Defence Secretary, Grant Shaps, was asked whether the British Government thought it was possible for 1 million people in the North of Gaza to move to the south in 24 hours. He started by saying the British government agrees with the Israeli government that Hamas needs to be removed from the scene but then went on to qualify this by saying it should be done “in a manner that does not affect the Palestinian population as far as is possible”.

Pressed on the point about how feasible such an ultimatum was he then talked about how dreadful Hamas are and how unspeakably vile its actions were in its attack on Isreal. On all this I think most people would agree with the Defence Secretary.

However, interviewer, Michelle Hussein tried to bring him back to the question she started with about the feasibility of moving 1 million people in 24 hours, including the elderly and the sick, across a war zone, where relentless missile bombardments have destroyed large parts of the transport infrastructure, with fuel, food and water scarcity.

The Defence Secretary refocused saying the warning the Israeli army was giving was important and that this was something Hamas had not provided. Well yes, I guess that is why the British Government have declared Hamas a terrorist organisation. But that does not answer the question at the heart of this. Is the order issued by the Israeli military consistent with acting in “a manner that does not affect the Palestinian population as far as possible”?

Indeed in the introduction to the piece, Michelle Hussein, reported the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, as having asked the Israeli government to take “all possible measures to protect ordinary Palestinian citizens”.

Just to give some scale to the Israeli Army’s order. Liverpool has a population of just under 500,000 people. Manchester has a population of just over 500,000 people. Try and imagine what would happen if they were both told they had to move every person in both cities to Warrington within 24 hours and the M62 was destroyed and no trains were running.

Does this sound like a strategy consistent with “not affecting” or “protecting” ordinary Palestinian citizens?

Saturday 10/7 was a black day, one which, as they said about Pearl Harbour, “will live in infamy”. There can be no excuse. The fear must be that one despicable act, killing hundreds of innocent civilians will spawn a response killing hundreds of other innocent civilians. And on and on and on.

This is a process which has moved from horrendous to terrifying and risks armageddon. It is premised on the false assumption there is a military solution to the problems of the Middle East. Only one thing is certain there is no likelihood of any solution being found before hundreds, possibly thousands more innocents are killed.