Middle East suffers, but where is Tony Blair?

Yesterday's deadly terrorist attack on a religious school in Jerusalem threatens to trigger a crushing Israeli assault on Hamas strongholds in the teeming refugee camps of the Gaza Strip. Although the lone gunman was a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem, and not a Hamas member sent from Gaza, Israeli government hawks have long been pressing for a ground offensive to root out Gaza's Islamic militant factions responsible for raining rockets on Israeli civilian targets.

According to unconfirmed reports, Israel recently asked the UN to consider establishing "humanitarian corridors" that would allow Palestinian civilians to flee in the event of a full-scale invasion of Gaza.

The bloodshed in Jerusalem followed hard on the heels of a stark warning by Western aid agencies that the Gaza Strip faces an imminent "humanitarian implosion" unless