THE shocking death toll in the Israeli-Hamas war has unquestionably plunged our lives beyond our normal capacity for outrage and grief. The monthlong fighting has been so brutal that after seeing over 10,000 dead on both sides — most of them innocent children, women, the sick, the elderly and unarmed civilians within a short period of days — we cannot help but feel we're standing before our very own graves. Yet the appalling disaster has failed to disturb the highest organs of our organized human existence.

Israel's decision to agree to 'pauses' in its Gaza offensive, to allow some civilians to flee the heavy fighting, introduces a welcome window in the unrelenting offensive. But what it gives with one hand it takes away with the other hand as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rules out any broader 'ceasefire' as a surrender to Hamas. The overall search for genuine peace remains stuck in the mud.