The first Israel missile hit its target, scorching the Gaza earth. Palestinians collected the body parts of two new martyrs, while Israeli media celebrated the demise of two terrorists.

Zuhair Al Qaisi was the head of the Popular Resistance Committees. He was killed alongside a Palestinian prisoner from Nablus who had recently been freed and deported to Gaza.

Then, another set of missiles rained down, this time taking Obeid Al Ghirbali and Muhammad Harara.

Then, a third and a forth, and so on. The death count began on March 9 and escalated during the day. The Hamas government urged the international community to take action. Factions vowed to retaliate.

In such situation, Western media are usually clueless or complicit. Sometimes both.

The Israeli army was cited readily by many media outlets, without challenge.

The first round of attacks was justified by the claim that Qaisi was involved in planning an attack that killed seven Israelis last year.

The Israeli army did not bother to set the record straight: Many Palestinians were also killed and wounded then.

The Israeli media had concluded that the attack then originated from Egypt, and no Palestinian was involved.

Al Jazeera reported that some of the victims were decapitated, a familiar scene among Israel’s atrocities.

Expectedly, Palestinians fired back.

“The national resistance brigades, the DFLP’s armed wing, the Al Aqsa brigades, and the armed wing of the PRC, the An-Nasser Salah Ad-Din brigades, have all claimed responsibility for rocket fire,” reported Maan news agency.

The incessant Israeli provocations would not have been enough to end the months-long truce. Palestinians know that Israeli provocations are often, if not always, politically motivated.

This time, however, the people killed were leaders in Al Muqawama, the local resistance parties.

Neither Hamas’ might nor diplomacy could persuade Gaza’s many factions to hold their fire. Israel knows this fact more than any other party. That is why it sent such unmistakably bloody messages. Israel needed Palestinians to respond, and urgently.

But why did Israel decide to ignite trouble again?

To answer the question, one needs to make a quick stop in Washington.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently tried to articulate a case for war against Iran in the US capital.

Unlike the successful effort to isolate, strike at and invade Iraq in 2003, the Iran war campaign is not going according to plan.

The Israelis are desperate to see Iran’s nuclear facilities bombed by American bunker buster bombs — some of which weigh up to 13,600 kg. Israel’s former head of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin, assured the “free world” — a term often manipulated by Netanyahu — that a bombing campaign can succeed if it is followed by the right measures.

“Iran, like Iraq and Syria before it, will have to recognise that the precedent for military action has been set, and can be repeated,” he wrote (as cited on CNN, March 9).

There is growing consensus in Israel that “something has to be done” — at least to set back Iran’s uranium enrichment by few years, per the assurances of deputy director of the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies, Ephraim Kam.

Republican candidates in the US, and even President Barack Obama, agree. But Obama, despite his grovelling at the recent AIPAC conference, dared to question the timing and the way in which Iran must be brought to its knees. The US president is becoming increasingly isolated in Washington because of his stance on Iran.

It is election year, and Israel knows that a window of opportunity will not be open for long.

“Netanyahu won a crucial battle in Washington this past week. No one brought up the Palestinians. Netanyahu has quite masterfully shifted the conversation to the subject of Iran,” wrote Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic (March 9).

He is right, of course, but only in the context of “peace process” and conflict resolution.

The Palestinians were mentioned in a different context, and repeatedly so. Kam, for example, expected thousands of rockets to rain on Israel from Hizbollah, Hamas and Iran itself.

The Associated Press quoted Vice Prime Minister Dan Meridor as saying: “The whole of Israel [is vulnerable to] tens of thousands of missiles and rockets from neighbouring countries. If there is a war… they are not just going to hit Israeli soldiers. The main aim is at civilian populations.” (February 20)

Per this logic, the only way to prevent rockets from reaching Israel is by attacking Iran. An independent Israeli commentator, Yossi Melman, predicted that a weakened Iran “would undoubtedly have an impact on Hamas and Hizbollah”. (CNN, March 9)

The Palestinians were liberally presented as the jackals who would pounce on vulnerable Israel. Who would dare challenge this tired victimisation narrative?

Who would have the audacity to point out the fact that Israel has the region’s strongest army, equipped with hundreds of fully functioning nuclear heads, while Palestinians fighters — who had until recently respected the truce, although Gaza’s siege was never lifted — are armed with light weapons?

No one in the mainstream media, of course. But then, as the supposed threat has reached an all time high, Hamas spokesperson in Gaza, Fawzi Barhoum told AP: “Hamas’ weapons and the weapons of the Palestinian resistance, in general, are humble weapons that aim to defend and not to attack, and they are to defend the Palestinian people… that does not give us the ability to be part of any regional war.”

Hamas has its own calculations, independent of Israel’s war momentum. But losing Hamas would jeopardise the very equation Israel has been constructing for years.

The “radical camp” must remain intact, as far as Israel is concerned. No political polarisation caused by the so-called Arab Spring will be allowed to endanger the Israeli narrative about the radicals, the evil alliance, the threat facing the “free world”, and all the rest. Great resources were spent on spinning the perfect story to justify a preemptive war.

Then, on March 2, less than two days after Barhoum made his comments about humble weapons, heads began to roll in Gaza. Literally. And the media machine resumed its work unabashed.

“Gaza rockets fire disrupts life in Israeli south,” read a headline in Israel’s Haaretz.

“IDF strikes Gaza terror targets following rocket barrage,” declared another in The Jerusalem Post.

It is war all over again. Israeli civilians run to shelters. Sirens blare. US media report the fate of “besieged” Israelis and Palestinian “terrorists”.

It matters little to them that it was Israel that stirred the trouble, broke the truce and fanned the flames.